Deuteronomy eBook

By Mark E Braun

What is the book of Deuteronomy about?Deuteronomy records the final words of Moses, one of God' s greatest leaders. While Moses led God' s people, an entire generation died in the wilderness, and a new generation took its place. Moses repeated the laws God had given on Mount Sinai and reapplied them for a new generation as the people prepared to enter the Promised Land.Want to learn more? If you' re wondering what Deuteronomy is about, this book is for you!Deuteronomy is a reliable Bible commentary. It' s down to earth, clearly written, easy to read and understand, and filled with practical and modern applications to Scripture.It also includes the complete text of the book of Deuteronomy from the NIV Bible. The Christ-centered commentaries following the Scripture sections contain explanations of the text, historical background, illustrations, and archaeological information. Deuteronomy is a great resource for personal or group study!This book is a part of The People' s Bible series from Northwestern Publishing House.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Northwestern Publishing House
• Release date: Jul 1, 1993
• ISBN: 9780810025110

Book preview

The People’s Bible

Deuteronomy

Mark Braun

NORTHWESTERN PUBLISHING HOUSE

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Cover art by Frank Ordaz.

Interior illustrations by Glenn Myers.

Covers of first edition volumes and certain second edition volumes feature illustrations by James Tissot (1836–1902).

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except for brief quotations in reviews, without prior permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Card 93–84455

Northwestern Publishing House

1250 N. 113th St., Milwaukee, WI 53226–3284

© 1993 by Northwestern Publishing House.

ISBN 0–8100–1164–6

CONTENTS

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Editor’s Preface

Introduction to Deuteronomy

Preamble (1:1–5)

Historical prologue (1:6–4:43)

Stipulations of the covenant (4:44–26:19)

Moral law (4:44–11:32)

Ceremonial law (12:1–16:17)

Civil law (16:18–26:19)

Ratification of the covenant (27:1–30:20)

Leadership succession under the covenant (31:1–34:12)

Select bibliography

ILLUSTRATIONS

Moses sees the Promised Land from afar

Moses and Joshua in the tabernacle

Moses blesses Joshua before the high priests

The death of Moses

MAP

Cities of refuge

EDITOR’S PREFACE

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The People’s Bible is just what the name implies—a Bible for the people. It includes the complete text of the Holy Scriptures in the popular New International Version. The commentary following the Scripture sections contains personal applications as well as historical background and explanations of the text.

The authors of The People’s Bible are men of scholarship and practical insight, gained from years of experience in the teaching and preaching ministries. They have tried to avoid the technical jargon that limits so many commentary series to professional Bible scholars.

The most important feature of these books is that they are Christ-centered. Speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures, Jesus himself declared, These are the Scriptures that testify about me (John 5:39). Each volume of The People’s Bible directs our attention to Jesus Christ. He is the center of the entire Bible. He is our only Savior.

The commentaries also have maps, illustrations, and archaeological information when appropriate. All the books include running heads to direct the reader to the passage he is looking for.

This commentary series was initiated by the Commission on Christian Literature of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

It is our prayer that this endeavor may continue as it began. We dedicate these volumes to the glory of God and to the good of his people.

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY

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Genesis describes the beginning of God’s gracious dealings in the original world and among the patriarchs. The first half of Exodus tells how God freed Jacob’s descendants from slavery in Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai. The second half of Exodus, all of Leviticus, and much of Numbers contain the many laws the Lord gave Israel through Moses at Sinai. Numbers also reports Israel’s journey through the wilderness to the eastern edge of Canaan.

One might expect the fifth book of the Old Testament to continue the account of how the Israelites crossed the Jordan River and conquered the land the Lord promised centuries earlier to give to Abraham’s descendants.

The next Old Testament book, however, brings a break in the action. Deuteronomy is a collection of farewell sermons Moses preached to Israel before they entered Canaan.

Title

The Hebrew title of this book is Elleh Haddebarim, which means These are the words, or simply Debarim, words. Similar to the first four books of the Bible, Deuteronomy draws its Hebrew title from the opening words of the book.

The English title Deuteronomy comes from a faulty translation of one of the verses of the book: "When [the king] takes the throne, he is to write for himself … a copy of this law" (17:18). The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, mistakenly translated this phrase as to deuteronomion touto, this second or repeated law. The Latin Vulgate maintained the name Deuteronomium. But, in fact, Deuteronomy isn’t a second law at all. It is a parting address in which Moses repeats the Sinai laws and reapplies them for a new generation of Israelites, who would soon enter Canaan.

In his prefaces to the Old Testament, Martin Luther wrote, In the fifth book, … Moses repeats the whole law.… When things went wrong, he explained the law and re-established it. Yet this explanation in the fifth book really contains nothing else than faith toward God and love toward one’s neighbor, for all God’s laws come to that.¹

Author

By referring to Moses and by calling it Moses’ fifth book, Luther voiced agreement with centuries of Jewish and Christian tradition that Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Pentateuch, written by Moses.

The book claims to be Moses’ last words of warning and hope to Israel before he died. These are the words Moses spoke (1:1). Moses began to expound this law (1:5). Moses wrote down this law (31:9). Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites (31:22). Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law (31:24).

The authors of the rest of the Old Testament name Moses as the author of Deuteronomy and of the entire Pentateuch. The Lord told Israel’s next leader, Joshua, Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you (Joshua 1:7). David charged Solomon to obey the Lord’s decrees and commands as written in the Law of Moses (1 Kings 2:3). In his prayer at the dedication of the temple, Solomon praised the Lord for choosing and rescuing Israel just as you declared through your servant Moses (1 Kings 8:53). The author of 2 Kings criticized Judah’s King Amaziah for failing to live in accordance with what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses (2 Kings 14:6). Assyria deported the Israelites because they had not obeyed the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded (2 Kings 18:12).

Jesus regarded Moses as the author of Deuteronomy. In discussing marriage and divorce, the Pharisees challenged Jesus, and he responded, addressing what Moses commanded in Deuteronomy chapter 24 (Matthew 19:3–8). The Sadducees appealed to Jesus by saying, Moses wrote for us, and Jesus rebuked them because they did not accept what was written in the book of Moses (Mark 12:19, 26). Jesus said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:46, 47).

Peter and Stephen both quoted Deuteronomy 18:15, maintaining that this was what Moses said (Acts 3:22; 7:37). Stephen added that Moses was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel, who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us (Acts 7:38). Paul quoted Leviticus 18:5 together with Deuteronomy 6:25 as something Moses describes and introduced a quotation from Deuteronomy 32:21 with the words Moses says (Romans 10:5, 19). Alluding to Deuteronomy 17:2–7, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews wrote, Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses (10:28).

Date and Place of Writing

According to 1 Kings 6:1, Solomon began building the Jerusalem temple in the fourth year of his reign, which was also 480 years after the Israelites left Egypt. Solomon’s rule can be reliably dated 970–930 B.C., so the fourth year of his reign was 966 B.C. Four hundred eighty years earlier would fix the date of Israel’s exodus from Egypt at 1446 B.C. Moses preached his farewell sermons to Israel in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month after the exodus (1:3). The date of Deuteronomy, then, is 1406 B.C.

Moses spoke these words in the desert east of the Jordan (1:1). This area, which he also identified as the Arabah, lies in the valley that extends from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south. Today this is part of the state of Jordan, about 15 miles southwest of Jordan’s capital city, Amman.

During the last two centuries, some critics of the Bible have doubted and denied the traditional date and Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. The explanation they offer for the origin of Deuteronomy generally goes like this:

Although there may be some words, phrases, and laws that go back to the time of the exodus, Moses didn’t write Deuteronomy or any other part of the Old Testament.

During the eighth century B.C., several writers gathered and edited the various laws that had evolved in Israel during the monarchy. To lend greater authority to their writing, they attached the name Moses to their writing. Although no one knows who these authors were, northern prophets such as Amos or Hosea are often credited with helping in the collecting and rewriting process.

When the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 B.C., someone preserved these writings and carried them to the Southern Kingdom, where they were stored for about a century. According to 2 Kings chapter 22, the high priest Hilkiah found the Book of the Law during a temple renovation project. Josiah, the last good king of the South, used this law book to bolster his efforts at reforming temple worship and removing pagan altars from his kingdom. Some suggest that the prophet Jeremiah played a major role in either discovering or editing these laws during Josiah’s reign. Unfortunately, when Josiah died in 609 B.C., his reform movement collapsed, and in 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.

Some of the exiles to Babylon took the law book with them. During the exile, editors revised the laws again to make them sound like a single sermon preached by Moses. This farewell sermon was included as part of a long history of Israel, from Genesis through 2 Kings. The last editor to assist in the revision of Deuteronomy was probably Ezra, who arranged this book into its final form around 450 B.C.

This alternate explanation for the origin of Deuteronomy has been repeated and revised during the last two hundred years until it has become firmly entrenched among most biblical scholars. To even propose that Moses was the real author of Deuteronomy and that he wrote it in the 15th century B.C. is, in their view, like insisting that the earth is flat.

In spite of its current acceptance, however, this explanation fails for at least three reasons:

1.Modern Bible critics maintain that the Pentateuch is made up of four or more independent sources that were assembled and revised by later editors. There is no evidence, however, that any such independent documents ever existed. Portions of the Pentateuch are typically assigned to authors with the code names J, E, D, and P, but no one has ever found a single J, E, D, or P document. The only text we have of the first five books of the Bible is the entire Pentateuch in its present form. When scholars try to separate the text into its alleged original sources, the results are confusing and contradictory.

2.To suggest that someone other than Moses spoke these words, at a time other than 40 years after the exodus, disagrees with what the book says about itself. The book claims to be Moses’ last words to God’s people. To suggest that someone other than Moses spoke these words also contradicts Jesus’ clear testimony. Jesus said Moses wrote these words. If he didn’t, we’re faced with two equally unacceptable alternatives. If Jesus did know that Moses hadn’t spoken these words and persisted in this fabrication for the sake of his listeners, our Lord is a liar. If, however, Jesus did not know that Moses hadn’t spoken these words and assumed with everyone else that they were authentically Mosaic, our Savior no longer deserves Peter’s worshipful words, Lord, you know all things (John 21:17). Neither solution satisfies.

3.Most critics of the Old Testament deny that Moses was the author of Deuteronomy because they reject predictive prophecy. Moses couldn’t foretell the future with such remarkable accuracy, they say. What seem to be accurate predictions of the future must really be statements made either shortly before or shortly after those events occurred. If, however, we believe that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), why is it so unbelievable that God could know what would happen in the future and proclaim it through the words of his spokesmen?

Structure

The Old Testament was not written in a vacuum. God spoke to people who lived at a particular time and place. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that covenant forms were used frequently in the ancient Near East. Students of the Old Testament are especially interested in the treaty, or covenant, forms from the Hittites, who lived in what today is Turkey during the second millennium before Christ.

There were two major types of treaties. A parity treaty was made between leaders or nations of equal rank; each leader or nation agreed to equivalent obligations toward the other. A second treaty form was the suzerain-vassal treaty. In this type of covenant, the more powerful country or leader acted as a suzerain, or overlord, toward the lesser individual or country, the vassal. The stronger suzerain could impose conditions and obligations on its weaker vassal.

Students of ancient suzerain-vassal covenants have identified a common form the covenants usually followed. They customarily contained the following elements:

1.Preamble. The suzerain introduced himself.

2.Historical prologue. The suzerain described, sometimes in great detail, the good deeds he’d done for the vassal in the past, reminding the vassal how his good actions first brought him into a covenant relation with the vassal. This entitled the suzerain to impose certain covenant obligations on the vassal.

3.Stipulations. The suzerain imposed rules, regulations, and decrees on the vassal.

4.Provisions for preservation and rereading of the covenant. Copies of the document were to be placed at significant locations for both the suzerain and the vassal. Suzerain and vassal were to read the covenant documents at regular intervals so neither would forget its provisions.

5.Call to witnesses. The suzerain and vassal provided lists of their respective gods, who would witness the covenant and ensure that both parties obeyed its stipulations.

6.List of blessings and curses. If the vassal obeyed the stipulations of the covenant, things would go well for him. If the vassal disobeyed, the suzerain would destroy him and everything he owned.

Sometimes the stipulations were divided into general principles, followed by more specific regulations. The order of the final three portions of the suzerain-vassal covenant was not always uniform. Not every treaty document discovered by archaeologists has contained all the treaty parts. The preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, and list of blessings and curses seem to be consistent throughout.

Many students of the Old Testament have pointed out the similarities between the suzerain-vassal treaty form and certain elements of the Sinai laws. The Lord introduced himself to Israel at Mount Sinai with the words, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt (Exodus 20:2); this is both preamble and historical prologue. There are stipulations throughout the Sinai laws, most notably in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3–17). Near the end of Deuteronomy, Moses wrote down this law and gave it to Israel’s leaders so that when the people assembled they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 31:12). Moses said, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day (Deuteronomy 4:26). Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28 contain lists of blessings and curses.

Did the Lord choose to reveal his will for Old Testament Israel in a form patterned after the covenants of the ancient world? Other inspired writers framed their words in styles familiar to their readers. Solomon gathered and wrote proverbs similar to the wisdom sayings of other nations. The Canaanites composed hymns to their gods. Our Lord wasn’t the first rabbi to teach in parables.

Scholars have further suggested that the entire book of Deuteronomy displays all the features of a suzerain-vassal treaty. In view of that, the following outline for Deuteronomy is proposed:

I.Preamble (1:1–5)

II.Historical prologue (1:6–4:43)

III.Stipulations of the covenant (4:44–26:19)

A.Moral law (4:44–11:32)

B.Ceremonial law (12:1–16: 17)

C.Civil law (16:18–26:19)

IV.Ratification of the covenant (27:1–30:20)

V.Leadership succession under the covenant (31:1–34:12)

While it’s easy to identify parallels between these ancient treaties and God’s covenant at Sinai, the Lord’s relationship with his Old Testament people was utterly unique. In a secular suzerain-vassal treaty, as one would expect, the suzerain acted entirely in his own interest. He usually gained control over a smaller vassal nation by conquering it in battle. The suzerain collected tribute from the vassal and required the vassal’s support in time of war.

By contrast, the Lord initiated his covenant with Israel not in view of what he wanted to get from her but because of what he wished to do for her. God began his relationship with Israel not at Sinai but much earlier. Six centuries before Sinai, the Savior-God selected Abraham and gave him a cluster of promises: God would make Abraham into a great nation, give his descendants the land of Canaan, and bless all peoples on the earth through him (Genesis 12:1–7). The Lord’s promises to Abraham were unconditional. God took the first step and did everything necessary to make his promises to Abraham come true. That’s grace.

Abraham’s descendants lived in the unconditional grace of the Lord’s promises, even after the Lord enacted the Sinai covenant with Israel. As Saint Paul later explained, The [Sinai] law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise (Galatians 3:17, 18). God’s covenant at Sinai shaped the Israelites as his covenant people; it reminded them of their sins; it distinguished them from the nations around them; it prepared them for Jesus Christ to come.

Israel did nothing to put the Lord’s covenant into effect. Israel’s obedience was never meant to effect God’s covenant but to reflect it. God didn’t ask Israel to obey in order to become his people but because he had already made them his people. Yet the Sinai covenant was conditional; the Lord told Israel, "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession" (Exodus 19:5). In the blessings and curses of the Sinai covenant, the Lord warned that Israel could forfeit the Promised Land by her unbelief.

Style and Purpose

Deuteronomy does much more than repeat the laws God gave at Sinai 40 years earlier. The book has a style and character all its own.

Deuteronomy is Moses’ swan song. The book contains the final words of a faithful leader who must now say good-bye to his people. As Moses restated this law, he also wanted to impress it deeply on his listeners’ hearts. Again and again Moses reminded Israel of the Lord’s goodness to them, though they hadn’t deserved it. There is a sense of urgency when Moses said, I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life (30:19). This is a loving father talking to his children for the last time.

Deuteronomy also provided guidance as God’s people faced a new situation. Israel wouldn’t be a nation of nomads anymore, living in tents, traveling through the Sinai wilderness. The people would soon take Canaan as their own and live a more settled life. In these new surroundings and under these changed circumstances, the temptation would be great for Israel to worship Canaanite gods and to conform to the wicked lifestyles of their neighbors. Compounding the temptation, Moses wouldn’t be with them any longer as he had been in the past. His warnings against falling away and his encouragements to remain faithful to their Redeemer-God were messages Israel needed to hear and keep.

Value

Why should men and women living 20 centuries after Christ bother to read a book written 15 centuries before Christ?

Luther raises a similar question in the introduction to his lectures on Deuteronomy:

There are many … who consider Moses and the whole Old Testament of very small value and claim to be content with the Gospel. From their opinion the Christian man must be far, far removed. For it is certain that our Moses is the fountain and the father of all the sacred books, that is, of heavenly wisdom and eloquence.

What value lies in reading Moses? First of all, Luther explained,

Moses teaches godliness. He preaches faith amply and richly. He attaches the most beautiful ceremonies, by which the common people must be grasped and held.… Then he busies himself with the ordering of civil government and the nurture of mutual love, and he directs and arranges everything with the most suitable and just laws. Nothing here is foolish or useless, but everything is necessary and useful, as he will easily understand who knows what it is to manage government.²

God intended all the Sinai laws, including those repeated in Deuteronomy, to be temporary regulations for an immature people. Saint Paul compared Old Testament Israel to a minor child who, though he will inherit his father’s entire estate, remains subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father (Galatians 4:2). New Testament Christians, Paul explained, no longer live under the guardianship of the Sinai regulations. When the time had fully come, God sent his Son … to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. So you are no longer a slave, but a son (Galatians 4:4, 5, 7).

Because of its temporary purpose in the life of God’s Old Testament people, God directed many of Sinai’s stipulations only to Israel and only until Christ came. Those laws in Deuteronomy that are not repeated in the New Testament are no longer binding on God’s New Testament people. Old Testament believers found themselves hemmed in by rules and regulations; New Testament believers live in the marvelous freedom of the new covenant.

Primarily, however, the value of Deuteronomy lies in its proclamation of the same Jesus we know and love and trust and serve. Moses predicted, The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him (18:15). That prophet came in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament priesthood and sacrifices prefigured our Lord’s saving work. Jesus is the High Priest, who made the perfect sacrifice of his own body at the cross. The Passover celebration, commemorating God’s great rescue of his people from Egypt, became the model for a still greater rescue God performed through his Son, who has set us free from slavery to sin and Satan and self.

Deuteronomy calls God’s redeemed people to live a life of total devotion to him; such a life is the only fitting response to God’s good news. The command to love neighbor as oneself is the essential thread in many of the stipulations in Deuteronomy. Although the external form of those laws no longer applies to New Testament Christians, the core content remains: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).

Outline

I.Preamble (1:1–5)

II.Historical prologue (1:6–4:43)

A.The appointment of leaders (1:9–18)

B.Spies sent out (1:19–25)

C.Rebellion against the Lord (1:26–46)

D.Wanderings in the desert (2:1–23)

E.Defeat of Sihon king of Heshbon (2:24–37)

F.Defeat of Og king of Bashan (3:1–11)

G.Division of the land (3:12–20)

H.Moses forbidden to cross the Jordan (3:21–29)

I.Obedience commanded (4:1–14)

J.Idolatry forbidden (4:15–31)

K.The Lord is God (4:32–40)

L.Cities of refuge (4:41–43)

III.  Stipulations of the covenant (4:44–26:19)

A.Moral law (4:44–11:32)

1.Introduction to the law (4:44–49)

2.The Ten Commandments (5:1–33)

3.Love the Lord your God (6:1–25)

4.Driving out the nations (7:1–26)

5.Do not forget the Lord (8:1–20)

6.Not because of Israel’s righteousness (9:1–6)

7.The golden calf (9:7–29)

8.Tablets like the first ones (10:1–11)

9.Fear the Lord (11:12–22)

10.Love and obey the Lord (11:1–32)

B.Ceremonial law (12:1–16:17)

1.The one place of worship (12:1–32)

2.Worshiping other gods (13:1–18)

3.Clean and unclean food (14:1–21)

4.Tithes (14:22–29)

5.The year for canceling debts (15:1–11)

6.Freeing servants (15:12–18)

7.The firstborn animals (15:19–23)

8.Passover (16:1–8)

9.Feast of Weeks (16:9–12)

 10.Feast of Tabernacles (16:13–17)

C.Civil law (16:18–26:19)

1.Judges (16:18–20)

2.Worshiping other gods (16:21–17:7)

3.Law courts (17:8–13)

4.The king (17:14–20)

5.Offerings for priests and Levites (18:1–8)

6.Detestable practices (18:9–13)

7.The prophet (18:14–22)

8.Cities of refuge (19:1–14)

9.Witnesses (19:15–21)

10.Going to war (20:1–20)

11.Atonement for an unsolved murder (21:1–9)

12.Marrying a captive woman (21:10–14)

13.The right of the firstborn (21:15–17)

14.A rebellious son (21:18–21)

15.Various laws (21:22–22:12)

16.Marriage violations (22:13–30)

17.Exclusion from the assembly (23:1–8)

18.Uncleanness in the camp (23:9–14)

19.Miscellaneous laws (23:15–25:19)

20.Firstfruits and tithes (26:1–15)

21.Follow the Lord’s commands (26:16–19)

IV.Ratification of the covenant (27:1–30:20)

A.The altar on Mount Ebal (27:1–8)

B.Curses from Mount Ebal (27:9–26)

C.Blessings for obedience (28:1–14)

D.Curses for disobedience (28:15–16)

E.Renewal of the covenant (29:1–29)

F.Prosperity after returning to the Lord (30:1–10)

G.The offer of life or death (30:11–20)

V.Leadership succession under the covenant (31:1–34:12)

A.Joshua to succeed Moses (31:1–8)

B.The reading of the law (31:9–13)

C.Israel’s rebellion predicted (31:14–29)

D.The Song of Moses (31:30–32:47)

E.Moses to die on Mount Nebo (32:48–52)

F.Moses blesses the tribes (33:1–29)

G.The death of Moses (34:1–12)

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Moses sees the Promised Land from afar

PART ONE

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Preamble

(1:1–5)

1 These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan—that is, in the Arabah—opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. ²(It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)

³In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them. ⁴This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth.

⁵East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying:

In the ancient Near Eastern covenant form, the suzerain began the treaty by introducing himself. These are the words seems to have been, at Moses’ time, the typical way of initiating a written agreement between a king and his subjects. Although these are the words Moses spoke, he was acting, as he had throughout the past forty years of his life, as the Lord’s spokesman.

There is sad irony in the remark that the journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea ordinarily took 11 days on foot. What could have been finished in less than two weeks took an entire generation. Of course, this 40-year delay wasn’t God’s fault; it was the Lord’s righteous judgment on Israel’s rebellion at Kadesh Barnea (Numbers 13:1–14:45).

The land east of the Jordan River is steppe land, higher and drier than the region west of the river. The Arabah is another name for the Jordan Rift, a deep, narrow valley that extends from the Sea of Galilee south to the Gulf of Aqaba and into northeastern Africa. Horeb is better known as Sinai, one of the mountains on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The Hebrew year began in late March, so the eleventh month was late February.

Moses didn’t want to proclaim a new or different law east of the Jordan than the one he had received from the Lord 40 years earlier at Sinai. He began to expound that law—to explain it for a new generation, to adjust it to the changed circumstances this generation would face, to renew the covenant relationship between the Savior-God and the sons and daughters of the men and women who had died in the wilderness.

There is always a tingle of anticipation when an aged preacher ascends the pulpit to preach one last time to his congregation. That tingle must have been very great on the plains east of the Jordan.

PART TWO

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Historical Prologue

(1:6–4:43)

After introducing himself in the preamble, an ancient suzerain recalled the previous history between himself and the vassal in the second part of the standard treaty form, the historical prologue. The prologue addressed important questions: Had there been a covenant between these peoples in the past? Had the suzerain shown kindness and provided protection for his vassal? Had the vassal demonstrated loyalty and obedience to his suzerain?

Israel had not come to know the Lord through myths or legends or human philosophy. Israel’s God had stepped into human history to do great things for his people. He chose Abraham and kept his promise to make a great nation of Abraham’s descendants. He rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. At Sinai he told Israel, I am your God, and you are my people. In this historical prologue, Moses recalls the gracious things God had done for the sons and daughters of the patriarchs.

Deuteronomy 1:6–8

⁶The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. ⁸See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them.

For the first time, Moses uses God’s name. He calls him "The LORD. This name comes from a Hebrew verb that means to be"; it emphasizes God’s absolute independence. You and I exist because God has given us life, but God exists in his own right. Nobody told God he had to love Israel or make a covenant with her, and God certainly didn’t extend his love to Israel because the Israelites tried hard to please him. God’s grace is absolutely independent of anything or anyone; it’s free, not just because you get it for nothing but also because it exists for reasons all its own.

The name LORD also reminds us of his absolute constancy. He doesn’t blow hot one day and cold the next. The writer to the Hebrews declares that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (13:8). When God makes a promise, we can be sure he’ll keep it. The Lord had explained the meaning of this name to Moses 40 years earlier: The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (Exodus 34:6, 7). This is the special covenant name for Israel’s God.

The name God comes from a Hebrew word that means the exalted one; it emphasizes God’s tremendous power, his unapproachable majesty. We can’t grasp this God in our puny hands and tell him, Listen, here’s what I want you to do for me! Yet Moses called him "our God." This powerful God, the shaper and shaker of the universe, is a God we know personally. He has revealed himself to us so we can know him and trust him and not be afraid.

Moses now recalls the Lord’s command that Israel go up and take the land. The Lord’s description of the land here contains the broadest boundaries the Promised Land ever had. With the exception of the reigns of David and Solomon, however, Israel never exercised complete control over the area included here. Yet these are the dimensions the Lord promised repeatedly to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The mountains includes the backbone of highlands that runs north to south through central and southern Palestine, later allotted to the tribes of Judah and Ephraim. The western foothills, also called the Shephelah, refers to the hilly region in Judah between the central highlands and the Mediterranean Sea. The Negev is the hot, dry area of the land in the south of Palestine, which borders on the still drier Desert of Zin. The Philistines controlled the southern coast along the Mediterranean Sea, and to the north Syria and Phoenicia ruled Lebanon during most of Israel’s history. Two hundred miles farther north and east was the extreme western fork of the Euphrates River, which flowed east to the Persian Gulf.

When Abraham moved here, the Canaanites were already in the land (Genesis 12:6). The term Amorites seems to have been a general name for the huge wave of people who swept into western Asia at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. Israel wasn’t about to move into a piece of vacant real estate. This corner of the ancient world had been occupied by other people for centuries, but now the Lord of history planned to give it to the sons of Jacob. This was a major step forward in the Savior’s master plan to rescue his world from sin and destruction.

The Appointment of Leaders

Deuteronomy 1:9–13

⁹At that time I said to you, You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone. ¹⁰The LORD your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky. ¹¹May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised! ¹²But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself? ¹³Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.

A more detailed version of this story is recorded in Exodus chapter 18. There it is clear that Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, diagnosed the problem and proposed the solution that Moses presents here. Jethro noticed how people stood around Moses from morning till evening, waiting to present their legal disputes to him. He told his son-in-law, What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you (Exodus 18:17–19). Here Moses doesn’t mention Jethro’s advice, but he had implemented the solution Jethro suggested.

The Lord assured Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens (Genesis 15:5), and Moses was grateful that the Lord kept his promise. But this great growth brought its own challenges. People today who belong to a Christian congregation that isn’t growing may imagine that all their congregation’s problems would be solved if only they would grow. Israel’s experience teaches us that when God blesses his church with increased numbers, leaders must react to changing needs.

Deuteronomy 1:14–18

¹⁴You answered me, What you propose to do is good.

¹⁵So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials. ¹⁶And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien. ¹⁷Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it. ¹⁸And at that time I told you everything you were to do.

Notice how Moses proceeds. First, he gains the agreement of the people. Even in this Old Testament setting, although the Lord had selected Moses to lead Israel, it was important that the people recognize their role in this ministry. Then, he specifies office requirements. These were to be leading men …, wise and respected. The qualifications were primarily spiritual. God’s leaders need not be brilliant men, but they must be good men. Moses had to act on the assumption that the Lord provided his people with a supply of capable potential leaders. Next, he develops an organizational plan, arranging the people and assigning responsibility over groups along tribal lines. He would retain responsibility for those cases too difficult for the judges to handle. Finally, he provides training, guidelines to do the task and the encouragement to do it well. Jethro had told Moses, Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform (Exodus 18:20).

This solution served Moses, the people, and the Lord’s work. Moses wasn’t weary and discouraged anymore because of his work load. Those among the people whom the Lord blessed with leadership gifts could now have those gifts developed and put into service. The Lord’s work was being accomplished quickly and more efficiently; the people no longer stood around Moses from morning till night. Frustration and unhappiness were reduced.

We can’t read Moses’ solution as a required blueprint for conducting the ministry in New Testament congregations. Christians are free to call leaders and organize in whatever way will meet their ministry needs the best. It is possible, however, to offer some general observations:

1.Administration is a good gift in the church; Paul listed it among the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:28). When Christian congregations identify and utilize those with the gift of administration, others are freed to serve better in keeping with their spiritual gifts.

2.When the Jerusalem congregation faced a dilemma related to their rapid growth, they carried out a similar plan (Acts 6:1–7). The congregation chose seven men as deacons to look after the physical needs of its widows, which allowed the apostles to devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and prayer. Both of these services are there described as ministry, and both were necessary to the church.

3.Paul pictured a cooperative relationship between congregational members and their called public servants of the Word, in which public servants of the Word take on an equipping role: [Christ] gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature (Ephesians 4:11–13).

Spies Sent Out

Deuteronomy 1:19–25

¹⁹Then, as the LORD our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰Then I said to you, You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. ²¹See, the LORD your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

²²Then all of you came to me and said, Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.

²³The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. ²⁵Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.

Throughout the journey from Sinai to the edge of the Promised Land, Israel grumbled, doubted, and disobeyed. The most outstanding, most disappointing individual incident occurred at Kadesh Barnea.

The journey through the Sinai wilderness must have been a grueling experience, more than a hundred miles over parched sand and limestone. Yet the Israelites enjoyed the amazing, unbroken care of their Savior-God. He fed them and led them in a way no other nation experienced. When they arrived at Kadesh, 40 miles southwest of Beersheba, the southern border of the land, Moses reminded them they wouldn’t need to take the land through military force. "The Lord your God has given you the land," he said.

Why was it decided to send spies? Perhaps the practice was typical. Because the Israelites had wavered in faith so much along the way, however, their request for a reconnaissance mission may have been motivated by that same weakness of faith. Numbers 13:2, 3 says that the Lord issued the command to send the spies, so his command must have been a generous response to their weakness.

The spies returned with a divided report. All were impressed by the fruitfulness of the land; the area around Hebron, where the Valley of Eshcol is located, is still famous for its fine grapes. But the majority was terrified by the fortified cities and the enormous size of the people they saw; ten of the dozen spies predicted that Israel would fail if they tried to capture the land. Only Joshua and Caleb, a minority of two, disagreed: We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it (Numbers 13:30).

The issue was simple: Would the people go into the Promised Land based on faith in the Lord’s goodness and power? Or would they go by what their eyes, ears, and fears told them?

Rebellion Against the Lord

Deuteronomy 1:26–33

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. ²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’ 

²⁹Then I said to you, Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. ³⁰The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, ³¹and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.

³²In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, ³³who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.

The majority report prevailed. Although the original group who’d grumbled and given up was now dead, Moses addressed the present generation as united with their fathers: "You grumbled in your tents and said, ‘The LORD hates us.’  What a sad sample of the inborn stubbornness and unbelief of sinful human beings. It is easier, wrote Albert Einstein, to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."³ The Lord rescued the Israelites from Egypt because he wanted to save them; they accused him of bringing them out to destroy them. He made a covenant with Israel because he loved her; they complained that he hated them.

If anything, the Anakites ought to have been afraid of Israel. As Moses reminded Israel, the Lord had already done great things for Israel that made other nations terrified of them. After Moses’ death, when the spies stayed at Rahab’s house in Jericho, she told them:

I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came up out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. (Joshua 2:9–11)

Israel’s previous history ought to have assured her that no nation could stand against her with the Lord on her side.

Deuteronomy 1:34–40

³⁴When the LORD heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: ³⁵Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, ³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the LORD wholeheartedly.

³⁷Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, You shall not enter it, either. ³⁸But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it. ³⁹And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it. ⁴⁰But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.

Fifteen hundred years after Moses, the writer to the Hebrews used this incident to teach an important lesson about faith:

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (3:16–19)

It’s serious business when the Lord takes an oath. He swore by himself to Abraham that Abraham’s descendants would take possession of the cities of their enemies (Genesis 22:17). The Lord would still keep his oath, but this generation of Abraham’s descendants now forfeited the blessing for themselves. Only the two spies who had presented a report based on faith in God’s promises would go into the land.

That previous generation of Israelites had rejected the Lord’s promises 38 years earlier. One by one, the members of that generation died. Recalling them reminded Moses of another incident, much more recent. Only ten months before this, Moses made a tragic error in front of this new generation. The Lord commanded him to speak to the rock at Kadesh Barnea, and it would pour out water. Instead, Moses called this new generation of Israelites rebels and struck the rock twice in anger. The Lord wanted Moses to give this new generation a demonstration of his gracious power that he would exercise for them. To put it another way, the Lord wanted Moses to speak gospel to them. But Moses lost his temper, and his angry behavior disclosed the wrong message—law instead of gospel. The Lord told Moses, Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them (Numbers 20:12).

We can sympathize with Moses. He gave in, though only for a moment, to the impatience and rebellion he’d seen for almost four decades. And we can feel the hurt when we hear Moses say, Because of you the LORD became angry with me also. Moses wasn’t trying to excuse himself from what he’d done, nor was he blaming the Israelites for his wrong actions. The Israelites had created the circumstances, however, which led him to fall too. Though separated by almost 40 years, Moses recalled these two incidents in the same breath because there was something common to both of them: both arose from the inborn stubbornness and unbelief of the sinful human heart.

If we refuse to believe what God tells us, we not only treat him as a liar; we hurt ourselves. We become the victims of our own unbelief.

Since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. (Hebrews 4:1, 2)

Deuteronomy 1:41–46

⁴¹Then you replied, We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us. So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

⁴²But the LORD said to me, Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.’ 

⁴³So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the LORD’S command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country. ⁴⁴The Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you; they chased you like a swarm of bees and beat you down from Seir all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵You came back and wept before the LORD, but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you. ⁴⁶And so you stayed in Kadesh many days—all the time you spent there.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, said the prophet Jeremiah, Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9) What sounds at first like a sincere admission of guilt—We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight—became, instead, the prelude for a second act of disobedience and unbelief. Remorse isn’t always easy to distinguish from repentance, till they lead to action. Judas also was seized with remorse after he betrayed his master (Matthew 27:3), but remorse can become as self-willed as the action from which it arose. True repentance leads to a renewed resolve to obey.

Moses doesn’t give us all the details of this disastrous attempt, other than that the Israelites beat a hasty retreat from Kadesh to Hormah, 50 miles back into the desolate Sinai wilderness. Surely each individual Israelite could repent during this long, self-inflicted exile. The Lord has never wanted anyone to perish but everyone to repent (2 Peter 3:9). But could their tears forever flow, the Lord wasn’t going to change his mind about excluding this generation of Israelites from the land.

What value is there for us to read such a discouraging record in the history of God’s people? Luther observed,

This, too, is written for our learning and comfort …, lest we despair when we sin, seeing that in this temptation not only many of the people, doubtless great and holy men, have fallen but even Moses himself, an outstanding man and the greatest leader of the people, together with Aaron, his holy brother—this is written that we may fear the Lord and mistrust ourselves, since by the strength of Him alone we are whatever we are.⁴

Wanderings in the Desert

Deuteronomy 2:1–9

2 Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the LORD had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir.

²Then the LORD said to me, ³You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north. ⁴Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. ⁵Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. ⁶You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’ 

⁷The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

⁸So we went on past our brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab.

⁹Then the LORD said to me, Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.

Moses didn’t repeat any other incidents during Israel’s banishment in the wilderness. Thirty-eight dismal years are compressed into one long detour around Seir, along the Gulf of Aqaba.

Numbers 20:14–21 reports a time at Kadesh when the Israelites sent an envoy to Edom’s king, seeking permission to pass through his land and promising to leave it untouched. Instead of granting Israel’s request, Edom’s king dispatched his army in a show of force, and Israel took a different route rather than fight. Here the Lord commanded Israel to avoid provoking the Edomites and to bypass their territory. Although this account appears to conflict with the details from Numbers, a closer inspection reveals that these two events occurred at different times and different places.

The Lord gave Israel two reasons not to provoke Edom: he had blessed Israel richly during their 40-year stay in the wilderness, and the Edomites were their brothers, descended from Jacob’s brother, Esau (Genesis 36:1). Similarly, the Lord’s command that Israel not harass the Moabites is based on their ancestral relationship; the Moabites were descended from Abraham’s nephew Lot (Genesis 19:30–38).

It’s noteworthy that the Lord said, I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.… I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot. The prevailing belief in the ancient Near East was that there were many gods, each of whom governed a particular people or location. By that belief, one could hardly expect a god from one region to exert much influence in a different location. Israel’s God, however, was no local or tribal deity. Saint Paul explained to the citizens of Athens, From one man he [God] made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live (Acts 17:26). Israel’s God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, is truly Lord of the nations.

Deuteronomy 2:10–12

¹⁰(The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. ¹¹Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites. ¹²Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the LORD gave them as their possession.)

Let’s be honest. This brief geographical insert was probably a lot more interesting to people at Moses’ time than it is to us. Yet even such seemingly trivial details validate the historical truthfulness of Scripture. They assure us that these words of the Bible are also the truth (John 17:17). Such incidental references offer valuable clues to historians and archaeologists as they put together the pieces of Israel’s history.

The Emites (whose name means terrors) seem to have moved into Palestine from the west. Moses describes both the Anakites and the Rephaites as unusually large people. Horites may be another name for the Hurrians, a race that lived in Mesopotamia about the same time Isaac and Jacob were alive.

Deuteronomy 2:13–19

¹³And the LORD said, Now get up and cross the Zered Valley. So we crossed the valley.

¹⁴Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. ¹⁵The LORD’S hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.

¹⁶Now when the last of these fighting men among the people had died, ¹⁷the LORD said to me, ¹⁸Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.

Zered is an intermittent stream that flows into the extreme southern tip of the Dead Sea. This and other such wadis are dry stream beds during the hot dusty summers in Palestine but quickly fill with torrents of water during the rainy winter months.

Israel couldn’t advance into the land until the previous generation of rebels was completely removed. Moses doesn’t report any natural causes for their deaths—no human explanations why they died. His ancient words reveal a truth that many modern people refuse to accept: all sickness and calamity and death, even though it may occur by means of very explainable causes, happens by the will of God. Job never doubted that his suffering came from God’s hand, and Satan was allowed to inflict loss and suffering on Job only within the boundaries the Lord established. Jude’s epistle says: I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe (verse 5).

The same historical ties that linked Israel with Moab also joined her to Ammon. Like Moab, Ammon was descended from Lot through an incestuous relationship with his daughter (Genesis 19:30–38).

Deuteronomy 2:20–23

²⁰(That too was considered a land of the Rephaites, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. The LORD destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place. ²²The LORD had done the same for the descendants of Esau, who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day. ²³And as for the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites coming out from Caphtor destroyed them and settled in their place.)

Caphtor may be another name for Crete or may refer to another nearby island or coastal area along the Aegean Sea. The Minoan civilization on Crete reached its peak about a century and a half after Moses’ death, and waves of settlers from Crete and the surrounding area settled in Palestine and conquered groups such as the Avvites. These western invaders are usually referred to