For Teaching

Deuteronomy 2: What the Passage Says

117 claims across 37 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Deuteronomy 2 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel finally leaves the Mount Seir region after thirty-eight years of wandering, during which the whole generation of fighting men who left Kadesh-barnea dies off. God tells them not to attack Edom, Moab, or Ammon, because he has given those lands to the descendants of Esau and Lot. Short background notes explain who lived in those lands before. Then God tells Israel to cross the Arnon and take the land of Sihon, king of Heshbon, who refuses safe passage; Israel defeats him and captures his cities, while staying away from the Ammonite land God had put off limits.

Claim by Claim

2:1
- Israel turned and journeyed into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.
- This was done as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
- They went around Mount Seir for many days.
2:2
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
2:3
- The LORD said they had gone around this hill country long enough.
- The LORD told them to turn northward.
2:4
- The LORD told Moses to command the people.
- The people were about to pass through the territory of their brothers, the descendants of Esau.
- The descendants of Esau dwelt in Seir.
- The descendants of Esau would be afraid of Israel.
- Israel was to be very careful.
2:5
- The LORD told Israel not to provoke the descendants of Esau.
- The LORD would not give Israel any of their land.
- The LORD would not give them even a footstep's breadth of it.
- The LORD had given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
2:6
- Israel was to buy food from them with silver and eat it.
- Israel was also to buy water from them with silver and drink it.
2:7
- The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand.
- He has known your going through this great wilderness.
- The LORD your God has been with you these forty years.
- You have lacked nothing.
2:8
- Israel passed by from their brothers, the descendants of Esau, who dwelt in Seir.
- They went by the way of the Arabah, from Elath and from Ezion-geber.
- They turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.
2:9
- The LORD said to Moses not to harass Moab.
- The LORD said not to contend with them in battle.
- The LORD would not give Moses any of Moab's land as a possession.
- The LORD had given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.
2:10
- The Emim dwelt in that land in former times.
- The Emim were a great and numerous people.
- The Emim were tall like the Anakim.
2:11
- The Emim were also reckoned as Rephaim, like the Anakim.
- The Moabites call them Emim.
2:12
- The Horim dwelt in Seir in former times.
- The descendants of Esau dispossessed them.
- The descendants of Esau destroyed them from before them.
- The descendants of Esau dwelt in their place.
- Israel did the same to the land of its possession.
- The LORD gave that land to Israel.
2:13
- Moses said to rise up and cross over the brook Zered.
- Israel crossed over the brook Zered.
2:14
- The time from Kadesh-barnea until Israel crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years.
- That period lasted until the whole generation of men of war had perished from among the camp.
- This happened as the LORD had sworn to them.
2:15
- The hand of the LORD was against them.
- The LORD's hand was against them to destroy them from among the camp.
- This continued until they were consumed.
2:16
- All the men of war died out from among the people.
2:17
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
2:18
- The LORD said Moses was passing that day through the border of Moab at Ar.
2:19
- Israel would come near opposite the descendants of Ammon.
- The LORD said not to harass them.
- The LORD said not to provoke them.
- The LORD would not give any of the land of the descendants of Ammon as a possession.
- The LORD had given that land to the descendants of Lot as a possession.
2:20
- That land also was reckoned a land of Rephaim.
- Rephaim dwelt in it in former times.
- The Ammonites call them Zamzummim.
2:21
- They were a great and numerous people.
- They were tall like the Anakim.
- The LORD destroyed them from before the Ammonites.
- The Ammonites dispossessed them.
- The Ammonites dwelt in their place.
2:22
- The LORD did the same for the descendants of Esau who dwelt in Seir.
- The LORD destroyed the Horim from before them.
- The descendants of Esau dispossessed them.
- The descendants of Esau have dwelt in their place until this day.
2:23
- The Avvim dwelt in villages as far as Gaza.
- The Caphtorim came out from Caphtor.
- The Caphtorim destroyed the Avvim.
- The Caphtorim dwelt in their place.
2:24
- The LORD told Israel to rise up, set out, and cross over the river Arnon.
- The LORD had given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, into Israel's hand.
- The LORD had given Sihon's land into Israel's hand.
- The LORD told Israel to begin to possess it.
- The LORD told Israel to contend with Sihon in battle.
2:25
- The LORD would begin that day to put dread and fear of Israel on the peoples under all the heavens.
- Those peoples would hear the report of Israel.
- Those peoples would tremble and be in anguish because of Israel.
2:26
- Moses sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth.
- The messengers were sent to Sihon king of Heshbon.
- The messengers carried words of peace.
2:27
- Moses asked to pass through Sihon's land.
- Moses said he would go along by the road.
- Moses said he would not turn to the right or to the left.
2:28
- Moses asked Sihon to sell him food for silver so he might eat.
- Moses asked Sihon to give him water for silver so he might drink.
- Moses asked only to pass through on foot.
2:29
- Moses said the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir had done so for him.
- Moses said the Moabites who dwell in Ar had done so for him.
- Moses asked this until he should cross the Jordan into the land the LORD their God was giving them.
2:30
- Sihon king of Heshbon was unwilling to let Israel pass through his land.
- The LORD your God hardened Sihon's spirit.
- The LORD made Sihon's heart obstinate.
- This was so that the LORD might deliver Sihon into Israel's hand, as is the case this day.
2:31
- The LORD said to Moses that He had begun to give Sihon and his land before him.
- The LORD told Moses to begin to possess it.
- The LORD told Moses to take possession of Sihon's land.
2:32
- Sihon came out against Israel.
- Sihon came out with all his people.
- Sihon came out to fight at Jahaz.
2:33
- The LORD our God delivered Sihon before Israel.
- Israel struck down Sihon.
- Israel struck down his sons.
- Israel struck down all his people.
2:34
- Israel captured all Sihon's cities at that time.
- Israel devoted to destruction the men of every city.
- Israel devoted to destruction the women and the little ones.
- Israel left no survivor.
2:35
- Israel took only the livestock as plunder for themselves.
- Israel took the spoil of the cities they captured.
2:36
- From Aroer on the edge of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was no city too high for Israel.
- The LORD our God delivered all of them before Israel.
2:37
- Israel did not come near the land of the descendants of Ammon.
- Israel did not come near any part of the river Jabbok.
- Israel did not come near the cities of the hill country.
- Israel did not come near whatever the LORD our God had commanded.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1: "Red Sea" translates Hebrew *yam suph*, literally "sea of reeds." The name covers more than one body of water; here, given the route described, it means the Gulf of Aqaba, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Seir is the rugged highland region running south and east of the Dead Sea, the homeland of Edom.
2:4: Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, who was also called Israel. Israelites traced themselves to Jacob and Edomites to Esau, so the two peoples were reckoned as brother nations, which is why the text calls them "relatives" rather than simply neighbors.
2:5: "Meddle not with them" is stronger than the modern sense of nosiness; it means do not provoke them or start something with them.
2:6: There were no coins in this period. Payment was made by weighing out silver, so "pay them with silver" means handing over metal measured by weight rather than counted-out money.
2:7: The forty years points back to the time Israel spent in the wilderness after the previous generation refused to enter Canaan from the south.
2:8: The Arabah is the deep rift valley that runs from the Dead Sea south to the Gulf of Aqaba. Elath and Ezion-geber were ports at the head of that gulf.
2:9: Lot was Abraham's nephew; the ancestry of both Moab and Ammon is traced back to him in Genesis, which makes them distant kin to Israel. Ar was a chief town, or possibly the district around it, in Moabite territory east of the Dead Sea.
2:10: The Anakites were remembered as a pre-Israelite people of unusual height, and are the standard yardstick in these texts for a formidably tall population. The name Emites means something like "terrors" or "frightful ones."
2:11: "Rephaim" is a term for a legendary population of giant stature said to have occupied the land before its later inhabitants. Older English Bibles simply translate it "giants." The verse notes that the same people were known by different names to different neighbors.
2:12: The Horites were the earlier inhabitants of Seir, displaced by Edom. Verses 10-12 are an aside written from a later standpoint, looking back after Israel was already settled in its land.
2:13: The Zered is a wadi, a valley whose stream runs only in the rainy season and is dry for much of the year. It marked the boundary between Edomite and Moabite territory.
2:14: Kadesh-barnea was the oasis in the wilderness south of Canaan where Israel had stayed for a long period, and from which scouts were sent into the land. "Sworn" refers back to the oath recorded in Numbers 14 that the adults of that generation would not enter Canaan.
2:15: "The LORD's hand" is an idiom for his power in action, not a description of a body part.
2:16: "Men of war" does not mean soldiers by trade. It means every man old enough to be called up to fight.
2:19: The Ammonites lived east of the Jordan, north of Moab; like the Moabites, they are traced back to Lot, Abraham's nephew.
2:20: Zamzummites is the Ammonite name for the same legendary giant-sized earlier population that the Moabites called Emites.
2:22: "Even unto this day" means the day this story was written down. That was a very long time ago.
2:23: The Avvim were an earlier people of the coastal plain. Caphtor is usually identified with Crete or the Aegean region generally, and the Caphtorites are elsewhere linked with the Philistines. "Gaza" is the coastal city on the southern edge of that plain; the older English spelling is Azzah.
2:24: The Arnon is a deep gorge running west into the Dead Sea; it formed the northern boundary of Moab. "Amorite" is used broadly in these texts for the pre-Israelite population of the hill country and the lands east of the Jordan. Heshbon was Sihon's capital, north of the Arnon.
2:25: "All the nations under the whole sky" is a stock phrase for the surrounding world as far as news could travel, not a literal claim about every nation on earth.
2:26: Kedemoth was a district on the desert fringe east of the Arnon; the name means roughly "eastern places."
2:27: The "main road" is probably the north-south trade route through Transjordan later known as the King's Highway. Staying on it, turning neither right nor left, was a promise not to stray into fields, wells or villages along the way.
2:28: Passing through "on my feet" means simply walking straight through, taking nothing and claiming nothing on the way.
2:29: The Jordan is the river running down the middle of this region. Crossing it was the last step before entering the land Israel had been promised.
2:30: In Hebrew usage the "heart" is the seat of thought, decision and will rather than of feeling; a hard heart means a mind set and unwilling to be moved, not a cruel disposition.
2:31: "Possess" and "inherit" are the standard words for taking land and holding it permanently, the way a family holds property that passes down through generations.
2:32: Jahaz was a town on the desert edge of Sihon's territory, north of the Arnon.
2:33: "Smote" is an old past tense of smite. It means struck down or defeated in battle.
2:34: "Completely destroyed" translates a specific Hebrew term (*herem*) meaning to place something under a ban: to hand it over irrevocably, so that it may not be kept, sold or used. Applied to a captured town it meant killing the inhabitants rather than taking them as slaves or absorbing them. "Children" here renders a phrase meaning the dependants of a household, the young and those unable to fight.
2:35: "Prey" and "spoil" mean captured animals and captured goods. The text records the exception carefully: livestock and property were kept, though in the strictest form of the practice described in the previous verse those would have been destroyed too.
2:36: Aroer stood on the rim of the Arnon gorge. Gilead is the hill country east of the Jordan, north of Sihon's kingdom. "Walls too strong" is literally "too high", the towns of the period were defended by raised walls, so height was the measure of a town's strength.
2:37: The Jabbok is a river running west into the Jordan, roughly midway along its length; it marked the western boundary of Ammonite territory.

Read Deuteronomy 2