Deuteronomy2chapter 2

Ar, the chief city of Moab, stands here for the whole country that depended on it, as John Wesley explains. Wesley also reads the title descendants of Lot as a pointer to the reason Moab was spared, since God still honoured Lot's memory. Albert Barnes notes that Moab and Ammon, as Lot's descendants, were kin to Israel as Edom was.

Deuteronomy 2:10-11

The word rendered giants is Rephaim, which is a people name, and Clarke says so outright. Emims is what Moab called them, and the Anakims are the measure of size the passage keeps reaching for. That measure is the report of the spies at Numbers 13:33, which 1:28 has already quoted back at Israel as the fear that cost the last generation its land, so the excursus is answering something the reader has just heard.

Rephaim is the wider name, and Emites is what the Moabites called the group in their land. John Gill infers from this that Emites was a later Moabite name, so Genesis 14:5 uses it by anticipation. Adam Clarke suggests the Emim, Anakim and Rephaim may be one people known by different names in different countries, though he grants that some of them were very tall.

The Horites are those of Genesis 14:6 and 36:20-21, and Esau took Seir from them as Israel is to take its land. The verse draws the comparison itself, "just as Israel did in the land", a pattern the chapter has now shown twice. Readers differ over which possession is meant, the ground taken from Sihon and Og or the whole land spoken of as given.

Deuteronomy 2:13-15

The Zered marks the close of an era, "thirty-eight years" out from Kadesh-barnea, and by the crossing the generation of fighting men is gone. Numbers 14:29-35 is the sentence being served, "Your bodies will fall in this wilderness", spoken of all numbered from twenty years old. Verse 15 gives the cause of those deaths, "the LORD’s hand was against them", the only place the chapter says it.

The sworn sentence of 1:34-35 is here reported as fulfilled, with the years counted from Kadesh-barnea, so the forty years of the wilderness include the time before Kadesh as well. Matthew Henry observes that ordinary providence replaces most of a generation in about thirty-eight years, but here the change was entire, and none remained except Caleb and Joshua.

The verb eliminate describes a steady removal from the camp over the years, until the last of the men counted at Sinai had died. Matthew Henry writes that those who have God's hand against them waste away until they are consumed. He also notes that Israel was sent to fight the Canaanites only after the veterans, hardened men who had learned war from the Egyptians, were all dead.

Deuteronomy 2:16-19

The word comes again only when the last fighting man has died, so the account resumes where the sentence ends. Ammon is spared on the third turn of the formula, and again the grant runs to "the descendants of Lot", which is Genesis 19:38. Jephthah answers an Ammonite land claim at Judges 11:12-27 by rehearsing these marches, reckoning three hundred years since, so these borders were argued long afterward.

The words match verse 2, and each time they open a new stage of the march. John Gill places this word at the brook Zered or at Dibon-gad, the next stopping place. Numbers 33:45 lists Dibon-gad as the camp after Iyim, so the word came as Israel reached the border of Moab.

The word today marks the day the march past Moab begins, keeping to the border as verse 9 required. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identify Ar as the capital of Moab, later called Rabbah, about twenty-five miles south of the Arnon. John Gill sets Ar beside the Arnon and reads the verse as travel along the edge of Moab, since Israel was given passage only along its border.

The approach to Ammon is described as coming close, since Israel's road ran along the Ammonite frontier, and verse 37 reports that the order was kept. Matthew Henry draws the conclusion the following verses support: if the providence of God gave Moab and Ammon their lands, his promise would much more give Israel its land.

Deuteronomy 2:20-23

The aside widens past Israel's kin: "the LORD destroyed" the Zamzummites before Ammon in the words used of Israel's wars, so the hand that grants a land takes it from another people. The last case leaves the family, as the Caphtorites destroyed the Avvim "as far as Gaza". Amos 9:7 and Jeremiah 47:4 tie Caphtor to the Philistines, whom Israel would fight for centuries on that coast.

The description repeats word for word what verse 10 says of the Emites. John Gill comments that the Zamzummites would have been too numerous and too tall for Ammon had the LORD not destroyed them. He adds that this was the way God gave Ammon its land, as verse 19 says.

The verse returns to Esau's case from verse 12 and sets it beside Ammon's, so two kinsmen of Israel now stand as examples of the same pattern. The phrase to this day speaks from the time of writing, when Edom still held Seir. John Gill notes the repetition from verse 12 and treats the Horites and the Zamzummites as instances of one kind.

Albert Barnes, commenting on verses 20 to 23, explains that the older word Hazerim means villages or enclosures, which is how the Berean text renders it. Matthew Henry reads the whole list as a lesson in how uncertain worldly possessions are and how often they change owners. John Wesley reports the learned opinion of his day that Caphtor was Cappadocia.

Deuteronomy 2:24-25

Three times the chapter has said "I will not give you", and here it says "I have delivered into your hand", so the conquest opens against Sihon the Amorite. Verse 25 promises "the dread and fear of you upon all the nations under heaven", as Exodus 15:14-16 had sung. Rahab reports it from Jericho at Joshua 2:9-11, naming Sihon and Og as the reason the country melted.

The promise is timed to this very day, so the report of the first battle east of the Jordan starts the fear. The nations are to hear the reports and tremble, and fear travels ahead of the army. Matthew Henry, commenting on this commission, says such particular grants of kingdoms were God's way at that time and are neither to be expected nor claimed now.

Deuteronomy 2:26-29

The embassy is the one at Numbers 21:21-23, told there in the third person and here by the man who sent it. Chapter 20:10 will make an offer of peace the required first move against a city, and this offer is that rule acted out before it is written down. Verse 29 argues from precedent, that Esau and Moab had already sold Israel food and water, which puts the transaction of verse 6 to work as a reference.

The request limits Israel to the main road, the same terms offered to Edom at Numbers 20:17, and Numbers 21:22 calls the road the King's Highway. John Gill explains the promise to turn neither right nor left as a pledge to keep out of fields and vineyards and do no damage to the crops.

The offer to pay for food and water repeats the terms of verse 6, and the last request is for passage alone. John Wesley reads on foot as describing an army of foot soldiers, whose passage would do less harm than a force of horsemen. John Gill points to Numbers 11:21, which counts Israel as six hundred thousand men on foot.

The last clause tells Sihon where Israel is going, across the Jordan, so his land is presented as a road to somewhere else. John Gill, following Jarchi, limits the precedent to the selling of food and water, since neither Edom nor Moab allowed passage through its land. He adds that Edom, though it refused at first, sold them provisions afterward.

Deuteronomy 2:30-31

The same act is said of Pharaoh at Exodus 4:21 and 7:3, and Joshua 11:20 says of the Canaanite kings that "it was of the LORD to harden their hearts". The offer of peace at verse 26 stands beside the hardening at verse 30, and readers divide over how the two agree. Calvin treats the hardening as God's own act, and Henry holds that the embassy left Sihon without excuse.

The verb begin appears twice, first for what God has started and then for what Israel is to start, so Israel's action follows on God's. John Gill takes God's beginning to be the hardening of Sihon's heart in verse 30, a sure sign of his coming defeat. He suggests the word came when the messengers returned with Sihon's answer.

Deuteronomy 2:32-33

Jahaz is where Numbers 21:23-24 puts the same battle, and Sihon comes out into the open rather than holding Heshbon behind its walls. The Hebrew consonantal text at verse 33 reads his son where the reading tradition gives his sons, and Gill notes the difference along with the rabbinic comment that one son was as mighty as his father. The King James follows the plural.

The victory is credited first to the LORD, who delivered Sihon over, and then to Israel, who struck him down. Matthew Henry reads the destruction of Sihon's people as judgment on a devoted nation, with Israel carrying it out as a kingdom of priests. He writes that the longer the measure of their sin took to fill, the heavier the reckoning at the end.

Deuteronomy 2:34-35

Barnes renders the verb behind "devoted to destruction" as laid under ban, the word of Leviticus 27:28 for a thing devoted, here covering every city. Genesis 15:16 had set the term, "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete", and verse 24 calls Sihon the Amorite. The livestock and plunder are kept here, unlike Jericho, where Joshua 6:18-19 puts everything into the treasury.

The livestock and goods of Sihon's cities became Israel's own property, while the people of those cities were destroyed. John Gill lists household goods, gold and silver among the plunder and says it was shared among the people. Matthew Henry, on the next verse, notes that a people raised in the wilderness suddenly became masters of a country already built and farmed.

Deuteronomy 2:36-37

The victory and the restraint come together: "not one city had walls too high for us", yet nothing was taken from Ammon. Numbers 21:24 says the Ammonite border held "because it was fortified", and verse 37 says the LORD "had forbidden" it, the reason given by the very chapter that claims no city was too strong. Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh ask for this land at Numbers 32.

The limit of the conquest is drawn at the Jabbok River and the Ammonite hill country, and the chapter closes on the command of verse 19 kept. Adam Clarke observes that the commission covered only those whose iniquity was full. He adds that Moab and Ammon repaid this restraint with hostility, citing Judges 11:4-5 and 2 Chronicles 20:1.