Deuteronomy 1:2

(There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) Eleven days’ journey from Horeb . . .—In our English Version this verse forms a separate sentence; but there seems nothing to prevent our taking it as completing the first verse. The route between Paran on the one side and the line from Tophel to Hazeroth on the other is still 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. But the requirements of the text seem, upon 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. And with the exception of three places where the name is used in describing boundaries, Kadesh -harnea 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). Upon the whole, it seems most likely that only one place or district is intended by the name.

We have now obtained 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, &c. And the very name Deuteronomy implies the repetition of a law previously given. Further, 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 full in view. It does not appear, by 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 but eleven days’ 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 (in 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 two first verses of Deuteronomy are an introduction to the first discourse above. (See Note on Deuteronomy 4:44.)

Is it possible to advance a step further, and conjecture with any degree of probability to what 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.spake 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 wrought 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.

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 1:2. There are eleven days’ journey — This is added, to show that the reason why the Israelites in so many years were advanced no farther from Horeb than to these plains, was not the distance of the places, but because of their rebellions. Kadesh-barnea — Which was not far from the borders of Canaan.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-8 Moses spake to the people all the Lord had given him in commandment. Horeb was but eleven days distant from Kadesh-barnea. This was to remind them that their own bad conduct had occasioned their tedious wanderings; that they might the more readily understand the advantages of obedience. They must now go forward. Though God brings his people into trouble and affliction, he knows when they have been tried long enough. When God commands us to go forward in our Christian course, he sets the heavenly Canaan before us for our encouragement.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For Kadesh see Numbers 13:26 note; and for Horeb see Exodus 3:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. There are eleven days' journey from Horeb—Distances are computed in the East still by the hours or days occupiesd by the journey. A day's journey on foot is about twenty miles—on camels, at the rate of three miles an hour, thirty miles—and by caravans, about twenty-five miles. But the Israelites, with children and flocks, would move at a slow rate. The length of the Ghor from Ezion-geber to Kadesh is a hundred miles. The days here mentioned were not necessarily successive days [Robinson], for the journey can be made in a much shorter period. But this mention of the time was made to show that the great number of years spent in travelling from Horeb to the plain of Moab was not owing to the length of the way, but to a very different cause; namely, banishment for their apostasy and frequent rebellions.

mount Seir—the mountainous country of Edom.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is added to show that the reason why the Israelites in so many years were advanced no further from Horeb than to these plains, was not the great distance of the places or length of the way, which was but a journey of eleven days at most, but because of their rebellions, as is mentioned before and repeated in this book.

Horeb, or

Sinai, the place where the law was given, which is promiscuously called by both those names.

Mount Seir, or Mount Edom, i.e. the mountainous country of Seir, which was first possessed by the Horims, and afterwards by the Edomites, Deu 2:12.

Kadesh-barnea was not far from the borders of Canaan. See Genesis 16:14 Numbers 13:26.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

There are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir, to Kadeshbarnea. Not that the Israelites came thither in eleven days from Horeb, for they stayed by the way at Kibrothhattaavah, a whole month at least, and seven days at Hazeroth; but the sense is, that this was the computed distance between the two places; it was what was reckoned a man might walk in eleven days; and if we reckon a day's journey twenty miles, of which See Gill on Jonah 3:3, the distance must be two hundred and twenty miles. But Dr. Shaw (e) allows but ten miles for a day's journey, and then it was no more than one hundred and ten, and indeed a camp cannot be thought to move faster; but not the day's journey of a camp, but of a man, seems to be intended, who may very well walk twenty miles a day for eleven days running; but it seems more strange that another learned traveller (f) should place Kadeshbarnea at eight hours, or ninety miles distance only from Mount Sinai. Moses computes not the time that elapsed between those two places, including their stations, but only the time of travelling; and yet Jarchi says, though it was eleven days' journey according to common computation, the Israelites performed it in three days; for he observes that they set out from Horeb on the twentieth of Ijar, and on the twenty ninth of Sivan the spies were sent out from Kadeshbarnea; and if you take from hence the whole month they were at one place, and the seven days at another, there will be but three days left for them to travel in. And he adds, that the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, pushed them forward, to hasten their going into the land; but they corrupting themselves, he turned them about Mount Seir forty years. It is not easy to say for what reason these words are expressed, unless it be to show in how short a time the Israelites might have been in the land of Canaan, in a few days' journey from Horeb, had it not been for their murmurings and unbelief, for which they were turned into the wilderness again, and travelled about for the space of thirty eight years afterwards. Aben Ezra is of opinion, that the eleven days, for the word "journey" is not in the text, are to be connected with the preceding words; and that the sense is, that Moses spake these words in the above places, in the eleven days they went from Horeb to Kadesh.

(e) De loc. Heb. fol. 92. I.((f) Pococke's Description of the East, vol. 1. p. 157.

Geneva Study Bible

(There are eleven days' journey from {c} Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)

(c) In Horeb, or Sinai, forty years before the law was given: but because all that were then of age and judgment were now dead, Moses repeats the same to the youth who either then were not born, or had not judgment.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. It is eleven days’, etc.] The distance from the accepted position of Ḥoreb-Sinai to that of Ḳadesh, ‘Ain Ḳudeis, is ‘10 or 11 days of common camel-riding’ (C. Trumbull K. B. 71, 215): caravans with children and flocks, like Israel’s, would of course take longer.

Horeb] Always in E, and Deut., as in 1 Kings 19 and Malachi, the name of the Mt of the Lawgiving, for which J and P have Sinai. The attempt has been made to interpret the two names as of different sites; but the Biblical evidence for their identity is clear; as even so early a scholar as Jerome perceived (Onom. Sacr. ed. Lagarde, 146). This matter as well as the questions of the position of Sinai-Ḥoreb (as between Jebel Musa and Jebel Serbal and between the Sinaitic Peninsula as a whole and the E. coast of the Gulf of ‘Aḳabah or Mt Se‘îr or the neighbourhood of Ḳadesh) has already been exhaustively discussed in this series (Driver, Exod. pp. 18, 177–191). It is, therefore, unnecessary to say anything more here; except to recall that the question as between the Sinaitic Peninsula and some site farther N. appears to have been open in the time of the Crusades and of the Moslem geographers in the 14th century. Abu-l Fida c. 1321: ‘the position of Tur Sinâ is the subject of discussion. Some say it is the mountain near Ailah (at the head of the Gulf of ‘Aḳabah) and others that it is a mountain in Syria’ (quoted by G. le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 72 f.). The Chronicle d’Ernoui et Bernard le Trésorier says, ‘Cel Mons Synai est entre le Mer Rouge et leCrac (Kerak).’ See further ZDPV xxxvii. 190 ff.

by the way of mount Seir] Se‘îr, the territory of Edom, lay W. as well as E. of the (Deuteronomy 1:44; cp. C. Trumbull K. B. 84 ff.; Buhl, Gesch. der Edomiter, 22 ff.); but Mt Se‘îr is in Dt (Deuteronomy 2:1) and elsewhere (e.g. Genesis 14:6) the range E. of the ‘Arabah. Thus the way of Mt Se‘îr would be the most easterly of the roads from the Sinai Peninsula to Ḳadesh, which passes through the ‘Arabah. Further see Dillm.

Kadesh-barnea] This form is peculiar to D, deuteronomic passages and P; elsewhere Ḳadesh stands alone: and we have besides ‘En-Mishpaṭ, Well of Judgement (Genesis 14:7), and Meribath-ḳadesh (see on Deuteronomy 33:2). The accepted site, visited first by Seetzen in 1807, then by Rowlands in 1842 (Williams, Holy City, i. 464 ff.), and described and argued for by Trumbull (Kad. Barn.), is the neighbourhood of the ‘Ain Ḳudeis (Seetzen’s and Rowlands’ spelling, confirmed by Musil) about 80 km. S.S.W. of Be’er-sheba‘, but the name must have covered the still more fertile ‘Ain Ḳadeyrât and the ‘A. Ḳaseymeh. Musil, who visited ‘Ain Ḳudeis thrice, doubts its identity with Ḳadesh (Edom i. 212), and suggests a site farther N.; yet he admits there the most fertile landscapes in all the region, describes the wâdies as either cultivated or full of relics of ancient cultivation, and even reports one more fertile than the plain about Gaza. See also PEFQ, 1914, 64 ff.; ZDPV, 1914, 7 ff. Barnea‘ has been explained as ‘son’ or ‘desert, of wandering.’ But it may belong to the number of non-Semitic names found in this region (e.g. Gharandel). To a hill S.E. of ‘Ain Ḳudeis, there is still attached the name Forni, which appears to be an echo of Barnea‘: the letter ‘ayin is sometimes dropped in mod. Arabic.

The whole fragment, 1b and 2, thus obviously out of place where it stands, may have been originally a note to Deuteronomy 1:19, which its details, so far as they are clear, suit.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Horeb. The name generally given to Sinai in Deuteronomy (see introduction, § 4). Sinai, however, occurs in Deuteronomy 33:2 of this book. By the way of mount Seir, i.e. by the way that leads to Mount Seir; just as in Deuteronomy 2:1, "the way of the Red sea" is the way that leads to that sea (see also Numbers 14:25). Mount is here, as often elsewhere, for mountain range. The mountain range here referred to seems to have been, not that on the east of the 'Arabah, but what is in vers. 6 and 19 called "the mountain of the Amorites," "the Seir by Hormah" of ver. 44, i e. the southern part of what was afterwards called the mountains of Judah. According to ver. 19, the Israelites, when they left Horeb, passed through the wilderness along the way that led to the mountains of the Amorites, and came to Kadesh-barnea. Kadesh must, therefore, be looked for, not on the eastern side of the 'Arabah, but somewhere in the wilderness of Zin. It has been identified with the place now known as 'Ain Kudes, near the northern extremity of Jebel Halal, and to the east of that hill; but this is far from being certain. Moses reminds the Israelites that the distance between Horeb and Kadesh is eleven days - i.e., about one hundred and sixty-five miles, the day's journey being reckoned at fifteen miles - not to give them a piece of information, but rather to suggest to them how, in consequence of rebellion, a journey which might have been so easily accomplished, had been protracted through many wearisome years. Deuteronomy 1:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Deuteronomy 1:2 also the retrospective glance at the guidance through the desert is unmistakeable. "Eleven days is the way from Horeb to the mountains of Seir as far as Kadesh-Barnea." With these words, which were unquestionably intended to be something more than a geographical notice of the distance of Horeb from Kadesh-barnea, Moses reminded the people that they had completed the journey from Horeb, the scene of the establishment of the covenant, to Kadesh, the border of the promised land, in eleven days, that he might lead them to lay to heart the events which took place at Kadesh itself. The "way of the mountains of Seir" is not the way along the side of these mountains, i.e., the way through the Arabah, which is bounded by the mountains of Seir on the east, but the way which leads to the mountains of Seir, just as in Deuteronomy 2:1 the way of the Red Sea is the way that leads to this sea. From these words, therefore, it by no means follows that Kadesh-Barnea is to be sought for in the Arabah, and that Israel passed through the Arabah from Horeb to Kadesh. According to Deuteronomy 1:19, they departed from Horeb, went through the great and terrible wilderness by the way to the mountains of the Amorites, and came to Kadesh-barnea. Hence the way to the mountains of the Amorites, i.e., the southern part of what were afterwards the mountains of Judah (see at Numbers 13:17), is the same as the way to the mountains of Seir; consequently the Seir referred to here is not the range on the eastern side of the Arabah, but Seir by Hormah (Deuteronomy 1:44), i.e., the border plateau by Wady Murreh, opposite to the mountains of the Amorites (Joshua 11:17; Joshua 12:7 : see at Numbers 34:3).