Deuteronomy 1:46

46. Abode in Kadesh many days This verse has been variously interpreted. Some understand it to mean that the Israelites remained there after their discomfiture as many days as they had been there before the return of the spies; some, that they abode there as long as they abode in all other stations that is, half the time of their years of wandering; others, that a portion of the people abode at Kadesh permanently, while Moses and the rest journeyed southward; and the change of the subject to the first person in the next chapter is held to sustain this latter view. From the data that we have, it is impossible to determine how long they abode there. Probably Kadesh was the central point for the whole people, the place of meeting on appointed days. Here the tabernacle may have been kept, and here Moses chiefly dwelt. “Next to Sinai, the most important of all the resting-places of the children of Israel is Kadesh.” STANLEY’S Sinai and Palestine. “There is something mournfully solemn and emphatic in the words, ‘Ye abode in Kadesh.’ Ye were on the very borders of Canaan, but instead of passing the frontier and entering into the Land of Promise ye abode at Kadesh; and when you moved from it, it was not to go northward into Canaan, but southward in the opposite direction; and after thirty-seven years’ weary wandering ye had only arrived at Kadesh again. Such were the consequences of disobedience.” Wordsworth.