19. From Ḥoreb to Ḳadesh-Barnea‘

A very brief account, indicating only the beginning and the end of the march, with the character of the wilderness between, and the further goal, the Mt of the Amorite: but it is possible that Deuteronomy 1:1 b, 2 (q.v.) were originally an addition or note to this.—The account of this march in JE, Numbers 10:33 to Numbers 21:16, includes the start from the Mt of Jehovah, the formulas recited on the lifting and the resting of the Ark, the disaffection of the people on the lack of flesh, the institution of 70 elders, the grant of flesh and its fatality, the presumptuousness of Miriam and Aaron, the encampment in the wilderness of Paran. Three stages are named, Tab‘erah, Numbers 11:3, Ḳibroth Ḥaṭṭa’avah and Ḥaṣeroth, Numbers 11:35 : the first two also in Numbers 9:22. P dates the start from Sinai on the 20th of the 2nd month of the 2nd year, states that the guiding cloud settled in the wilderness of Paran, and adds the order of the host, Numbers 10:11-28.

Deuteronomy 1:19. And we journeyed] Rather broke up or set out, A.V. departed. Heb. nasa‘ was originally to pull up the tent-pegs, break camp, but came to cover the journey that ensued, to march by stages (Genesis 12:19; Genesis 35:21). That the earlier meaning is intended here is clear from the following verb.

that great and terrible wilderness] Deuteronomy 8:15. This was much the most desolate tract of the wilderness crossed by Israel. See Palmer on the Desert of el-Tih (Desert of the Exodus), 284–288, and Musil, Edom.

Kadesh-barnea] See above on Deuteronomy 1:2.

Verses 19-23. - Here Moses passes from the judges to the people at large; from charging officials to judge righteously, to reminding the people that they also had received from him commandments which they had to obey. The "things" referred to are either the injunctions specified in Exodus 21, etc., or simply the instructions mentioned in the preceding verses. God had called the Israelites out of Egypt that they should go up at once to Canaan, and he had by Moses done all that was needed for this. But they had been rebellious, and had opposed God's commands, the consequence of which was that they had been made to experience various trials, especially to wander nearly forty years in the wilderness, so that of those who came out of Egypt only two were privileged to see the Promised Land. The words of Moses in this section supplement and complete the narrative in Numbers 13; but the words are those, not of a compiler, but of one who had been himself a witness of all he narrates. Verses 19-26. - That great and terrible wilderness: the desert forming the western side of the Stony Arabia. It bears now the name of Et-Tih, i.e. The Wandering, a name "doubtless derived from the wanderings of the Israelites, the tradition of which has been handed down through a period of three thousand years It is a pastoral country; unfitted as a whole for cultivation, because of its scanty soil and scarcity of water" (Dr. Porter, in Kitto's 'Biblical Cyclopedia,' vol. 3. p. 1075). In the northern part especially the country is rugged and bare, with vast tracts of sand, over which the scorching simoom often sweeps (see on ver. 1). This wilderness they had seen, had known, and had experience of, and their experience had been such that the district through which they had been doomed to wander appeared to them dreadful. Passing by the way of the Amorites, as they had been commanded (ver. 7), they came to Kadesh-barnea (see Numbers 12:16). Their discontent broke out oftener than once, before they reached this place (see Numbers 11, 12.); but Moses, in this recapitulation, passes over these earlier instances of their rebelliousness, and hastens to remind them of the rebellion at Kadesh (Numbers 13, 14.), because it was this which led to the nation being doomed to wander in the wilderness until the generation that came out of Egypt had died. It was through faith in God that Canaan was to be gained and occupied by Israel; but this faith they lacked, and so they came short of what God had summoned them t, attain (Psalm 78:22; Psalm 106:24; Hebrews 3:18, 19; comp. 2 Chronicles 20:20; Isaiah 7:9). Hence, when they had come to the very borders of the Promised Land, and the hills of Canaan were before their eyes, and Moses said to them, in the name of God, Go up, possess ("asyndeton emphaticum," Mi-chaelis), they hung back, and proposed that men should be sent out to survey the land and bring a report concerning it. This was approved of by Moses; but when the spies returned and gave their report, the people were discouraged, and refused to go up. They were thus rebellious against the commandment (literally, the mouth, the express will) of Jehovah their God; and not only so, but with signal ingratitude and impiety they murmured against him, and attributed their deliverance out of Egypt to God's hatred of them, that he might destroy them (see Numbers 13:1-33, to which the narrative here corresponds). Deuteronomy 1:19Everything had been done on the part of God and Moses to bring Israel speedily and safely to Canaan. The reason for their being compelled to remain in the desert for forty years was to be found exclusively in their resistance to the commandments of God. The discontent of the people with the guidance of God was manifested at the very first places of encampment in the desert (Numbers 11 and 12); but Moses passed over this, and simply reminded them of the rebellion at Kadesh (Numbers 13 and 14), because it was this which was followed by the condemnation of the rebellious generation to die out in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 1:19-25

"When we departed from Horeb, we passed through the great and dreadful wilderness, which ye have seen," i.e., become acquainted with, viz., the desert of et Tih, "of the way to the mountains of the Amorites, and came to Kadesh-Barnea" (see at Numbers 12:16). הלך, with an accusative, to pass through a country (cf. Deuteronomy 2:7; Isaiah 50:10, etc.). Moses had there explained to the Israelites, that they had reached the mountainous country of the Amorites, which Jehovah was about to give them; that the land lay before them, and they might take possession of it without fear (Deuteronomy 1:20, Deuteronomy 1:21). But they proposed to send out men to survey the land, with its towns, and the way into it. Moses approved of this proposal, and sent out twelve men, one from each tribe, who went through the land, etc. (as is more fully related in Numbers 13, and has been expounded in connection with that passage, Deuteronomy 1:22-25). Moses' summons to them to take the land (Deuteronomy 1:20, Deuteronomy 1:21) is not expressly mentioned there, but it is contained implicite in the fact that spies were sent out; as the only possible reason for doing this must have been, that they might force a way into the land, and take possession of it. In Deuteronomy 1:25, Moses simply mentions so much of the report of the spies as had reference to the nature of the land, viz., that it was good, that he may place in immediate contrast with this the refusal of the people to enter in.

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