Deuteronomy 2 Study Notes
Share
2:1 The Red Sea mentioned here is not the body of water at the Gulf of Suez crossed by Israel during the exodus, but another arm of that sea between the Sinai Peninsula and Arabia.
2:2-3 The Israelites had tried to avoid the difficult route through the hill country by penetrating Canaan from the south. When that failed they had to go south to the Red Sea, skirt the hill country by hugging the coast, then turn north through Edom’s interior.
2:4-7 When Israel encountered the Edomites (the descendants of Esau), they did not attack them because the Lord had given . . . the hill country of Seir as his possession. Thus, Israel was not the only people given a promised land (vv. 9,19; cp. Gn 33:16; 36:1-8). It was Israel’s task that was unique and not the fact that God gave them a special place of habitation.
2:8 The Arabah road linked the Dead Sea with the Gulf of Aqaba and took its name from the valley that is part of the Great Rift geological fault (1:1).
2:9 The descendants of Lot were the Moabites and Ammonites, named for the sons whom Lot fathered by his own daughters following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19:30-38). Lot was Abraham’s nephew, and it was this kinship that permitted Moab and Ammon to be treated with such favor. Ar was a city just south of the Arnon Gorge, but the name here is synonymous with all of Moab.
2:10-11 Verses 10-12 are parenthetical. The Rephaim (and Anakim) were a giant race associated not only with Moab (as here) but with Bashan (Jos 12:4) and Ammon (Dt 2:20). Their identification as Anakim locates them also in Canaan, particularly in Philistine areas (Jos 11:21-22; 14:12,15; 15:13-14).
2:12 Esau’s clan drove the Horites out of Edom, their ancestral land, and settled Edom in their place (cp. v. 22; Gn 36:8). This statement was probably added by a later inspired writer, since it speaks of Israel’s conquest in the past tense.
2:13 The Zered Valley, now known as Wadi el-Hesa, flows from the Edomite hill country into the southeast corner of the Dead Sea.
2:14-15 This is a summary of the Israelites’ time in the wilderness.
2:16-19 Ammon, the brother of Moab—born as the result of incest between Lot and his daughters (v. 9)—was the ancestor of the Ammonites.
2:20-23 This is another parenthesis.
2:23 The Caphtorim appear to be equivalent to the earlier Philistines of the patriarchal era (Gn 21:32,34; 26:1,8). They are said to have settled in the vicinity of Gaza (Jos 13:3), and elsewhere they are said to have originated in Caphtor, likely on the island of Crete (Jr 47:4; Am 9:7; cp. Gn 10:14). Thus, the common argument that considers Philistines in Genesis as anachronistic has no real substance.
2:24-3:7 This recounts the events originally told in Nm 21:21-35.
2:24 Heshbon, the capital city of the Amorites’ King Sihon, is identified by many scholars with Tell Hesban, near Amman, Jordan. However, this seems unlikely because Hesban is too small to have been a capital and it did not exist as early as the biblical date of the conquest.
2:25 This was confirmed when Joshua’s spies spoke with Rahab in Jos 2:8-11.
2:30 The Lord making Sihon’s spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate is similar to God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart before the exodus (Ex 9:12; 10:1,20)—an act of God that followed Pharaoh’s consistent hardening of his own heart (Ex 8:15,32; 9:34). The hardening in both cases was so God’s deliverance could be seen as a miracle on behalf of his people (Dt 2:30; Ex 7:3-5).
2:31 Apparently God intended for some of the tribes of Israel to live in Transjordan.
2:34-35 Sihon’s destruction sanctioned by the Lord must be viewed not as a cruel act but as a means of eliminating a hopelessly unrepentant people who, if left alive, would corrupt the Israelites through intermarriage and religious syncretism (7:1-6). In fact, Israel’s failure to obey God in this respect brought about precisely this result (1Kg 11:1-6; 2Kg 17:7-17).
2:36-37 These words echo Nm 13:28 when the spies complained that the cities were too strongly fortified.