Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 1

INTRODUCTION.

These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel.—The first two verses and the three that follow form a kind of double introduction to the book, and perhaps more especially to the first portion of it, which ends with Deuteronomy 4:40.

On this side Jordan.—Literally, on the other side Jordan from the writer’s or reader’s point of view.

In the wilderness.—These words further define the expression that precedes: “on the wilderness side of Jordan,” or “before they crossed the Jordan, while they were still in the wilderness.” Strictly speaking, the words “in the wilderness” cannot be connected with what follows, because “the plain” described is on neither side of Jordan, but below the southern end of the Dead Sea.

In the plain—i.e., the ‘Arâbah. Usually the plain of Jordan; here the valley that extends from the lower end of the Dead Sea to the head of the Gulf of Akabah.

Over against the Red Sea.—Hebrew, opposite Sûph. In all other places in the Old Testament, when we read of the Red Sea, it is Yam Sûph. Here we have Suph only. On these grounds some take it as the name of a place. (Compare Vaheb in Sûphah, Numbers 21:14, margin.) But we do not know the place; and as the Jewish paraphrasts and commentators find no difficulty in accepting Suph by itself as the sea, we may understand it as the Gulf of Akabah. The plain between Paran and Tophel looks straight down to that gulf.

Between Paran, and Tophel ...—Literally, between Paran, and between Tophel and Laban, etc.: that is, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab on the other. This is the literal meaning, and it suits the geography so far as the places have yet been identified.

The small map at p. 239 of Conder’s Handbook to the Bible shows the desert of Paran stretching northward from Sinai on the left, and on the right, Tophel and Hazeroth (the only other places identified among these five) at the two extremities of a line drawn from the southeast end of the Dead Sea in the direction of Sinai. Tophel is identified as Tufîleh, and Hazeroth is ’Ain Hadra.

Laban must be some “white” place lying between, probably named from the color of the rocks in its neighborhood. Dizahab should be nearer Sinai than Hazeroth. The Jewish commentators, from its meaning, “gold enough,” connected it with the golden calf.

And it is not inconceivable that the place where that object of idolatry was burned with fire, and stamped, and ground very small, until it was as small as dust, and cast into the brook that descended out of the mount (Deuteronomy 9:21), was called “gold enough” from the apparent waste of the precious metal that took place there; possibly also because Moses made the children of Israel drink of the water. They had enough of that golden calf before they had done with it.

If this view of the geography of this verse is correct, it defines with considerable clarity the line of march from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. It lies between the mountains on the edge of the wilderness of Paran on the west, and the Gulf of Akabah on the east, until that gulf is left behind by a traveler going northward.

It then enters the desert of Zin, called here the plain, or ‘Arâbah. This desert is bounded by ranges of mountains on both sides, and looks down to the Gulf of Akabah. Behind the western range we still have the wilderness of Paran.

On the east are the mountains of Edom, which Israel first had on their right in the march to Kadesh-barnea, and then on their left in a later journey, in the last year of the exodus, when they went around the land of Edom. Tophel lies on the east of this range, just before the route becomes level with the southern end of the Dead Sea.

But the whole of the route between Paran on the left and those other five places on the right belongs to Israel’s first march from Sinai to Kadesh. It takes them up the desert of Zin, and, so far as these two verses are concerned, it keeps them there.

Eleven days’ journey from Horeb ... —In our English Version, this verse forms a separate sentence, but there seems nothing to prevent us from taking it as completing the first verse. The route between Paran on one side and the line from Tophel to Hazeroth on the other is further defined as “a distance of eleven days’ journey from Horeb in the direction of Mount Seir, reaching to Kadesh-barnea.” The position of this last place is not yet determined with certainty. However, the requirements of the text seem, on the whole, to demand that it should be placed high up in the wilderness of Paran, not far from the border of the wilderness of Zin. It must be close to some passage out of the wilderness of Zin into the Negeb, or south of Judah.

Kadesh-barnea. —In the regular narrative of the exodus, we read of the place to which the twelve spies returned as Kadesh (Numbers 13:26), and of the place at which the period of unrecorded wandering closed (Numbers 20:1), in the first month of the fortieth year, as Kadesh. The name Kadesh-barnea first appears in Moses’ speech (Numbers 32:8), where he refers to the sending of the twelve spies. With the exception of three places where the name is used in describing boundaries, Kadesh-barnea is always found in speeches. This first chapter of Deuteronomy is the only one which contains the name both with and without the appendage -barnea, which connects it with the wanderings of Israel (Deuteronomy 1:32). On the whole, it seems most likely that only one place or district is intended by the name.

We now have the following view of this first short introduction to the Book of Deuteronomy. It consists of words spoken (in the first instance) to all Israel on their march from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. But the following verses show that the Law was further “declared” to Israel in the plains of Moab, at the close of the fortieth year of the exodus and of Moses’ life. It does not seem possible for us to separate entirely what was spoken earlier from what was declared later. In several places, we have the record of words spoken: for example, in this very chapter (Deuteronomy 1:9; Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 1:18; Deuteronomy 1:20; Deuteronomy 1:29; Deuteronomy 1:43), and Deuteronomy 5:5, and so on. And the very name Deuteronomy implies the repetition of a law previously given.

Furthermore, the exhortations contained in this book are all enforced by the immediate prospect of going over Jordan and entering the promised land. But when Israel marched from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, it was with this very same prospect fully in view. It does not appear, from what Moses “said” at that time (Deuteronomy 1:20), that he had any thought of their turning away from the enterprise. But if so, what supposition is more natural than this—that he delivered the same kind of exhortations in the course of that earlier journey which he afterwards delivered in the plains of Moab? And although the distance is only an eleven-day march, the Israelites spent something like three months on the way, and in waiting for the spies to return from Canaan.

We conclude, then, that the first two verses of Deuteronomy are an editorial introduction, stating that the substance of this book was first delivered to Israel by Moses between Sinai and Kadesh-barnea. The further introduction which follows (Deuteronomy 1:3–5) shows the words to have been re-delivered in the plains of Moab, and preserved in their later rather than their earlier form. But it is also possible that the first two verses of Deuteronomy are an introduction to the first discourse mentioned above. (See Note on Deuteronomy 4:44.)

Is it possible to advance a step further and conjecture with any degree of probability to whose hand we owe the first two verses of the book? The expression “on the other side Jordan” (which some take to be a technical term) seems strictly to mean on the opposite side to the writer. The writer must also have been acquainted with the places mentioned (three of which are not named in the previous books); he could not have drawn his knowledge from the earlier part of the Pentateuch. And so entirely has the geography of Deuteronomy 1:1 been lost by tradition, that all the Targums and Jewish commentators agree in spiritualising the passage, and say, “these are the words of reproof which Moses spoke to all Israel in respect of their behaviour at these various places.” Laban points to their murmuring at the white manna.

Dizahab to the golden calf, and so on. Even Rashi, usually a most literal commentator, says, “Moses has enumerated the places where they committed provocation before the PLACE” —a Rabbinical name for Jehovah: for “the whole world is His place, though His place is more than the whole world.” This introduction to Deuteronomy seems the work of one who had known the wilderness, and yet wrote from Palestine. Joshua, the next writer to Moses, and possibly also his amanuensis, may have prefixed it to the book. If he did not, it is wholly impossible to say who did.

And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month. —The “and” is the real beginning of Deuteronomy, and connects it with the previous books. The moral of these words has been well pointed out by Jewish writers. It was only eleven days’ journey from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea—the place from where Israel should have begun the conquest of the promised land; but not only eleven days of the second year of the exodus, but eleven months of the fortieth year found them still in the wilderness. “We see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”

Moses spoke to the children of Israel ... after he had slain Sihon ... and Og. — The conquest of these two kings and their territories was one of the exploits of the fortieth year . Before the eleventh month of that year, not only Sihon and Og, but also the five princes of Midian, who were dukes of Sihon, dwelling in the country (Joshua 13:21), had also been slain (Numbers 31:0). This completed the conquest and was the last exploit of Moses’ life.

In the period of repose that followed, he found a suitable time to exhort the children of Israel, according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. From Deuteronomy 34:8, we learn that the children of Israel wept for Moses thirty days. These days would seem to be the last month of the fortieth year, for on the tenth day of the first month (Joshua 4:19), they passed over Jordan. Thus, the last delivery of the discourses recorded in Deuteronomy would seem to lie within a single month.

On this side Jordan, in the land of Moab. This would be on the other side of Jordan from the standpoint of the writer, or of the readers for whom the book was intended, which is Palestine.

Began Moses. “Began,” meaning “determined” or “attempted.”

To declare. This may intend the emphatic reiteration of what had already been received from God and delivered to Israel. However, the Hebrew word used here occurs in only two other places, and in both it is connected with writing. (See Deuteronomy 17:8, “You shall write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly” (bâêr hêtêb, meaning in writing and in making good). Again, in Habakkuk 2:2, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables.” The etymological affinities of the word also suggest the idea of writing.

It would seem, then, that at this period Moses began to commit the discourses and laws that he had delivered to a permanent form, arranging and writing them with the same motive that influenced the Apostle Peter (2 Peter 1:15), “Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.”

In this discourse, the history of Israel from the time of their departure from Sinai is briefly recapitulated (Deuteronomy 3:29), along with a short practical exhortation. This portion of history comprises three periods of the exodus:

1. The march from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, with the sending of the twelve spies and its results, related more at length in Numbers 10:11 to the end of Deuteronomy chapter 14. The characteristic feature of this period is failure on the part of both leaders and people to rise to their high calling. Moses (Numbers chapter 11), Aaron and Miriam (Numbers chapter 12), Joshua (Numbers 11:28), the spies, who were also rulers (Deuteronomy 13:14), and the people throughout, all in turn exhibit the defects of their character. In the end, the enterprise is abandoned for the time.
2. The thirty-seven and a half years that follow are a period of disgrace, as is apparent from the absence of any note of time or place in the direct narrative between Numbers chapter 14 and Numbers chapter 20. Certain places are mentioned in Numbers chapter 33 which must belong to this period, but nothing is recorded of them beyond their names. A single verse (Deuteronomy 2:1) is all that is assignable to that period in this discourse of Moses. This long wandering was also a period of training and discipline.
3. The fortieth year of the exodus, in which the conquest of Sihon and Og was accomplished, and Israel reached the banks of the Jordan. After the sentence of death pronounced against their elder generation had been executed, a new life now began.