Deuteronomy 1:1 - Exposition

These be the words. Some would render here "Such are the words," and understand the expression as referring to the preceding books. But it seems more natural to refer it to what follows—to the addresses in this book. The pronoun these ( אֵלֶּה ) may be used with a prospective reference, as well as with a retrospective (cf. e.g. Genesis 2:4 ; Genesis 6:9 ). The author does not by this connect this book with the preceding, but rather distinguishes it. The subscription to Numbers ( Numbers 36:13 ) indicates that what precedes is occupied chiefly with what God spake to Moses; the inscription here intimates that what follows is what Moses spake to the people. This is the characteristic of Deuteronomy. Unto all Israel. It cannot be supposed that Moses spoke to the whole multitude of the people so as to be heard by them. Hence the Jewish interpreters say that he spoke to the elders of the people, who carried his words to the people at large. This is just; for what was thus mediately communicated to the people might be fairly described as spoken to them; and we find from other passages in the Pentateuch that the phrase, "the elders of Israel," in the mind of the writer, was equivalent to "the congregation of Israel" (comp. e . g . Exodus 12:3 with Exodus 12:21 ; Le Exodus 9:1 with Exodus 9:5 ). But through whatever medium conveyed, it was to the people that these words were addressed; this is emphatically a book for the people. On this side Jordan. This should be On the other side or beyond Jordan , and so also in verse 5, as in Deuteronomy 3:20 , Deuteronomy 3:25 . The word here used ( עֵבֶר ) means properly something beyond, over, or across, and indicates that which, to the speaker, lies on the other side of some line or limit. When coupled with "the Jordan," it usually indicates the region to the east of that river; only in one or two instances, where the speaker takes his standpoint on the east of the river, does it designate the regions to the west of Jordan ( Deuteronomy 3:25 ; Deuteronomy 11:30 ) The phrase "beyond Jordan" seems to have been the established designation of the region east of the Jordan (cf. Ezra 4:10 , and Canon Rawlinson's note there). It is this, unquestionably, which is here so designated, as what follows expressly shows. The wilderness. This term is used of any extensive district not occupied by inhabitants or subjected to culture; hence of vast prairies or pasturelands, as well as of places properly desert and desolate. It here denotes the grassy plains or downs on the east and southeast of the Jordan, in the land of Moab ( Deuteronomy 3:5 ). In the plain ; in the Arabah. This is properly the whole of that remarkable depression which stretches from the source of the Jordan on to Akabah, or the Ailanitic Gulf; but here it is only that part of it which extends from the south end of the Dead Sea to Allah ( Deuteronomy 2:8 ). This part still bears the name of the 'Arabah, the northern part being known as the Ghor. Over against the Red sea. The name by which the Red Sea is elsewhere designated is Yam-suph ( יַם־סוּף ); here only the latter word occurs, and this has led some to doubt if the Red Sea be here intended. Patrick, Rosenmüller, and others suggest that Suph denotes some place in that region, probably Suphah, so called because lying at its extremity, as the verb suph , from which it comes, means, to come to an end; but it is not certain that Suphah designates a place in Numbers 21:14 . The Hebrew word סוּפְה means a tempest or whirlwind; and this meaning may be assumed here, as it is by Gesenius, Keil, and others: "Waheb [he conquered] in a storm." Knobel suggests that probably the pass now called Es Sufah, on the north side of the Wady Murreh—the Maleh-acrabbim (Scorpion-ascent) of Joshua 15:3 —is meant; others have suggested Zephath ( 1:17 ; comp. Numbers 14:45 ), and others Zuph ( 1 Samuel 9:5 ). It is probable, however, that Suph is here merely a breviloquence for Yam-suph , the Red Sea; and so all the ancient versions take it. The identification of the Yam-suph of the Old Testament with the ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα of the Greeks, the mare erythraeum , or rubrum , of the Latins, is due to the LXX ; which other versions have followed. The identification is undoubtedly correct (cf. Numbers 33:10 and 1 Kings 9:26 ). Yam-suph , indeed, means simply sea of weeds, and might be the name of any sea in which algae are found; but these passages clearly prove that by this the Hebrews designated the Red Sea. At what part of this sea the Israelites crossed, and the hosts of Pharaoh were submerged, is and must remain uncertain, because we know not what was the condition of the Isthmus of Suez at the time of the Exodus. It is probable it was not at any part of what is now known as the Red Sea or Gulf of Suez. Brugsch Bey places it at that—

"Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk."

(Milton, 'Paradise Lost,'Bk. 2:592.)

But this has not been accepted by scholars generally. It seems probable that originally only a marshy district lay between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean; and somewhere in this probably the passage of the Israelites and the drowning of the Egyptians occurred. Between Paran, and Tophel , etc. This serves more fully and particularly to indicate the locality here intended; but the details present considerable difficulty. Taken in connection with the words "over against the lied sea ," the names here given can only be regarded as intended more precisely to indicate the region in which the Israelites had been during the forty years of their wandering. Paran : this is the name of the wilderness bordering on Idumea, where the Israelites encamped ( Numbers 10:12 ; Numbers 12:16 ); the place of their encampment being Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin ( Numbers 13:21 , Numbers 13:26 ), which was the eastern part of the wilderness of Paran. hod . Wady Murreh. The wilderness of Paran corresponds in general outline with the desert of Et-Tih. This is a vast plateau of irregular surface stretching from the Et-Tih range northwards to the boundaries of the Holy Land, and from the Gulf of Akabah and the Wady cf. Arabah on the east to the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean on the west. It is described as "a chalky formation, the chalk being covered with coarse gravel, mixed with black flints and drifting sand;" not, however, wholly sterile: in many parts vegetation abounds, considerable portions are under cultivation, and there are evidences that it one time water was abundant there. It is not, however, to the wilderness of Paran that the reference is in the text, but to some definite locality or spot in the region in which the Israelites then were, or which they had recently passed through. It has been suggested that the place now called Feiran, and where there are the ruins of a town, once of some importance in the early history of Christianity, is the Paran of this passage, as it apparently is the Paran of I Kings Joshua 11:18 . But this locality at the base of Jebel Serbail is much too far west to be the Paran here referred to. More probable is the suggestion that it is the Faran mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome ('Onomast.,' s . v . φαράν ), a city to the cast (northeast) of Allah or Elath, about three days' journey. Tophel : this name occurs only here; it is supposed to be the place now coiled Tufailah or Tafyleh, a large village of six hundred inhabitants, between Bozrah and Kerak, on the eastern slope of the mountains of Edom. As this is a place where the Syrian caravans are supplied with provisions, it has been conjectured that the Israelites, when at Oboth ( Numbers 21:10 , Numbers 21:11 ), may have resorted to it for a supply, and that it was here that they purchased meat and drink from the children of Esau ( Deuteronomy 2:29 ). And Laban. Laban is generally identified with Libnah, the second place of encampment of the Israelites on their return from Kadesh ( Numbers 33:20 , Numbers 33:21 ). Knobel, however, thinks it is the place called by Ptolemy ' αὔαρα , lying between Petra and Allah; this name, from the Arabic, see Arabic word, (he was white), having the same meaning as the Hebrew לָבָן . Hazeroth is supposed to be the place mentioned in Numbers 11:35 ; Numbers 12:16 , from which the Israelites entered the wilderness of Paran; but as the other places here mentioned are on the east side of the Arabah, it is not probable that this Hazeroth is the same as that of Numbers, which must have been not far from Sinai, in a northerly or north-westerly direction from that mountain, probably at or near to the fountain now called El Hudherah (Wilson, 'Lands of the Bible,' 1.235; Kitto, 'Cyclopedia,' 2.243). There were probably several places bearing the name of Hazeroth , i . e . villages. Dizahab . This is generally identified with Dhahab, a place on a tongue of land in the Gulf of Akabah. But it is extremely improbable that the Israelites ever were at this place, the approach to which is exceedingly difficult; and the mere resemblance of the names Dizahab and Dhahab is not sufficient to prove the identity of the places. There were probably more places than one which were named from zahab (gold) in the region traversed by the Israelites. There is a Dhahab on the east of the Jordan near the Zerka or Jabbok, a double mound, which is said to derive its name from the yellowish color of the sandstone rock of which it consists, and which is metalliferous. In the Arabic of the Polyglot, Dizahab appears as Dhi-dhahab , which signifies " auro praeditum vel ab auro dictum; nam דו vel די , apud Arabes in compositione nominum propr. idem est ac Hebrews בעל " (J. H. Michaelis). There is a various reading here, Di-waheb , and this has been supposed to connect this place with the Waheb of Numbers 21:14 . But, as above noted, it is by no means certain that Waheb is there the name of a place; it may, as Bishop Patrick suggests, be that of a man, some hero or chief, who was conquered in Sufah or in a storm. Waheb is a name among the Arabs. The maternal grandfather of Me-hammed had this name; and the sect of the Wahabees take their name from Abdul Wahab, a fanatic who appeared about the beginning of last century. The words "between Paran and Tophel" have been taken to indicate' the termini of the wanderings; at the commencement of these the people were at Paran, and towards the close of them they were at Tophel. '"Looking from the steppes of Moab over the ground that the Israelites had traversed, Suph, where they first entered the desert of Arabia, would lie between Paran where the congregation arrived at the borders of Canaan toward the west, and Tophel where they first ended their desert wanderings thirty-seven years later on the east" (Keil). But this assumes that Paran here is the wilderness of Paran.