Deuteronomy 1:46

So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(46) So ye abode in Kadesh many days.—Better, and. In Numbers 14:25 the command was, “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness.” This command was broken by the attack on the Canaanites, made on the morrow after the command. We cannot be certain that the many days spent in Kadesh were spent after the defeat. It may be merely a note of the fact that the time spent in Kadesh was considerable. The mission of the spies alone occupied forty days.

According unto the days that ye abode there.—The Jewish commentator Rashi, quoting from Sêder Olâm, says they in Kadesh, and nineteen in their wanderings.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:19-46 Moses reminds the Israelites of their march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, through that great and terrible wilderness. He shows how near they were to a happy settlement in Canaan. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites, that they were not far from the kingdom of God. As if it were not enough that they were sure of their God before them, they would send men before them. Never any looked into the Holy Land, but they must own it to be a good land. And was there any cause to distrust this God? An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God's laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God's salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Amorites - In Numbers 14:45, it is "the Amalekites and the Canaanites" who are said to have discomfited them. The Amorites, as the most powerful nation of Canaan, lend their name here, as in other passages (eg. Deuteronomy 1:7) to the Canaanite tribes generally.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

46. So ye abode at Kadesh many days—That place had been the site of their encampment during the absence of the spies, which lasted forty days, and it is supposed from this verse that they prolonged their stay there after their defeat for a similar period.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. As you abode in Kadesh many, even forty days, until the spies which you sent returned to give you an account; so you also abode there many days, or a long time after, and were not now permitted to make any further progress towards Canaan.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So ye abode in Kadesh many days,.... Yea, some years, as some think:

according to the days that ye abode there; that is, according to Jarchi, as they did in the rest of the journeys or stations; so that as they were thirty eight years in all at several places, they were nineteen years in Kadesh; the same is affirmed in the Jewish chronology (w). Maimonides says (x) they were eighteen years in one place, and it is very probable he means this; but Aben Ezra interprets it otherwise, and takes the sense to be, that they abode as many days here after their return as they did while the land was searching, which were forty days, Numbers 13:25, but without fixing any determinate time, the meaning may only be, that as they had been many days here before this disaster, so they continued many days after in the same place before they marched onward into the wilderness again.

(w) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24. (x) Moreh Nevochim. par. 3. c. 50.

Geneva Study Bible

So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

46. So ye abode in Ḳadesh] So JE, Numbers 20:1 b, but apparently of a later residence than this.

many days, according unto the days that ye abode there] ‘An example of the “idem per idem” idiom often employed in the Semitic languages, when a writer is either unable or has no occasion to speak explicitly’ (Driver). Cp. Deuteronomy 9:25, Deuteronomy 29:16 [15]; 1 Samuel 23:13, etc.

If this verse be from the writer of the rest of this discourse the time implied cannot, in the light of his further statements in Deuteronomy 2:1; Deuteronomy 2:14, amount to years; for the 2nd of the 40 years was already either wholly or nearly exhausted and these verses state that all the next 38 were spent between Ḳadesh and the Moabite frontier. But as we shall see in the introd. to the next section JE attributes to the people a very long residence in Ḳadesh, in fact the bulk of the 38 years. Probably, therefore, the indefinite statement of this verse is not from the writer of the rest of this discourse, but from an editor aware of the divergent traditions; in further evidence of which observe that he uses the simple Ḳadesh instead of the Ḳadesh-barnea‘ employed in the rest of the discourse.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 46. - It was unnecessary that Moses should tell the people the precise length of time they abode in Kadesh after this, because that was well known to them; he, therefore, contents himself with saying that they remained there as long as they did remain (comp. for a similar expression, Deuteronomy 9:25). How long they actually remained there cannot be determined, for the expression, many days, is wholly indefinite.



Deuteronomy 1:46

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Then ye returned and wept before Jehovah," i.e., before the sanctuary; "but Jehovah did not hearken to your voice." שׁוּב does not refer to the return to Kadesh, but to an inward turning, not indeed true conversion to repentance, but simply the giving up of their rash enterprise, which they had undertaken in opposition to the commandment of God-the return from a defiant attitude to unbelieving complaining on account of the misfortune that had come upon them. Such complaining God never hears. "And ye sat (remained) in Kadesh many days, that ye remained," i.e., not "as many days as ye had been there already before the return of the spies," or "as long as ye remained in all the other stations together, viz., the half of thirty-eight years" (as Seder Olam and many of the Rabbins interpret); but "just as long as ye did remain there," as we may see from a comparison of Deuteronomy 9:25. It seemed superfluous to mention more precisely the time they spent in Kadesh, because that was well known to the people, whom Moses was addressing. He therefore contented himself with fixing it by simply referring to its duration, which was known to them all. It is no doubt impossible for us to determine the time they remained in Kadesh, because the expression "many days" is imply a relative one, and may signify many years, just as well as many months or weeks. But it by no means warrants the assumption of Fires and others, that no absolute departure of the whole of the people from Kadesh ever took place. Such an assumption is at variance with Deuteronomy 2:1. The change of subjects, "ye sat," etc. (Deuteronomy 1:46), and "we turned and removed" (Deuteronomy 2:1), by no means proves that Moses only went away with that part of the congregation which attached itself to him, whilst the other portion, which was most thoroughly estranged from him, or rather from the Lord, remained there still. The change of subject is rather to be explained from the fact that Moses was passing from the consideration of the events in Kadesh, which he held up before the people as a warning, to a description of the further guidance of Israel. The reference to those events had led him involuntarily, from Deuteronomy 1:22 onwards, to distinguish between himself and the people, and to address his words to them for the purpose of bringing out their rebellion against God. And now that he had finished with this, he returned to the communicative mode of address with which he set out in Deuteronomy 1:6, but which he had suspended again until Deuteronomy 1:19.