Deuteronomy 2:29

(As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God giveth us.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) Until I shall pass over Jordan.—This was already determined.

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 2:29-30. As the children of Esau did — They did permit them to pass quietly by the borders, though not through the heart of their land, and in their passage the people sold them meat and drink, being, it seems, more kind to them than their king would have had them; and therefore they here ascribe this favour not to the king, though they are now treating with a king, but to the people, the children of Esau. Hardened his spirit — That is, suffered it to be hardened.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:24-37 God tried his people, by forbidding them to meddle with the rich countries of Moab and Ammon. He gives them possession of the country of the Amorites. If we keep from what God forbids, we shall not lose by our obedience. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; and he gives it to whom he pleases; but when there is no express direction, none can plead his grant for such proceedings. Though God assured the Israelites that the land should be their own, yet they must contend with the enemy. What God gives we must endeavour to get. What a new world did Israel now come into! Much more joyful will the change be, which holy souls will experience, when they remove out of the wilderness of this world to the better country, that is, the heavenly, to the city that has foundations. Let us, by reflecting upon God's dealings with his people Israel, be led to meditate upon our years spent in vanity, through our transgressions. But happy are those whom Jesus has delivered from the wrath to come. To whom he hath given the earnest of his Spirit in their hearts. Their inheritance cannot be affected by revolutions of kingdoms, or changes in earthly possessions.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Kedemoth - literally, "Easternmost parts;" the name of a town afterward assigned to the Reubenites, and given out of that tribe to the Levites. Compare Joshua 13:18; 1 Chronicles 6:79.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24-36. Rise ye up … and pass over the river Arnon—At its mouth, this stream is eighty-two feet wide and four deep. It flows in a channel banked by perpendicular cliffs of sandstone. At the date of the Israelitish migration to the east of the Jordan, the whole of the fine country lying between the Arnon and the Jabbok including the mountainous tract of Gilead, had been seized by the Amorites, who, being one of the nations doomed to destruction (see De 7:2; 20:16), were utterly exterminated. Their country fell by right of conquest into the hands of the Israelites. Moses, however, considering this doom as referring solely to the Amorite possessions west of Jordan, sent a pacific message to Sihon, requesting permission to go through his territories, which lay on the east of that river. It is always customary to send messengers before to prepare the way; but the rejection of Moses' request by Sihon and his opposition to the advance of the Israelites (Nu 21:23; Jud 11:26) drew down on himself and his Amorite subjects the predicted doom on the first pitched battlefield with the Canaanites. It secured to Israel not only the possession of a fine and pastoral country, but, what was of more importance to them, a free access to the Jordan on the east.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Object. The king of Edom, i.e. of the children of Esau, did not grant them passage, Num 20.

Answ. They did permit them to pass quietly by the borders, though not through the heart of their land; and in their passage the people sold them meat and drink, being, it seems, more kind to them than their king would have had them; and therefore they here ascribe this favour not to the king, though they are now treating with a king, but to the people,

the children of Esau.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me,.... Which respects, as Jarchi observes, not the affair of passing through their land requested, for neither of them granted that, but buying food and drink; for though the Edomites at first seem not to have granted that, yet afterwards they did. The mountain of Seir, and the city Ar, are put for the whole countries of Edom and Moab:

until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God giveth us; this is observed to remove any suspicion or jealousy of their seizing his country, and taking possession of it, and dwelling in it; since they only proposed to pass through it on their journey to the land of Canaan, which lay on the other side Jordan, over which they must pass in order to possess it, which they had a right unto by the gift of God.

Geneva Study Bible

(As the {m} children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God giveth us.

(m) Because neither intreaty nor examples or others could move him, he could not complain of his just destruction.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. as the children of Esau … and the Moabites] In JE Numbers 20:18 ff. Esau refused Israel’s request made from Ḳadesh, but appears to have sold them bread and water when, later, Israel crossed the S. end of Mt Se‘ir, Deuteronomy 2:6. In Deuteronomy 23:5 [4] Mo’ab is blamed for not meeting Israel with bread and water on the way—but does that mean did not sell them these?

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - As the... did unto me. This refers expressly to the fact that the Edomites and Moabites did not hinder the Israelites from passing through their country, though they were far from friendly, and dealt in an unbrotherly way with them, for which the Moabites were afterwards placed under a ban (Deuteronomy 23:3). Deuteronomy 2:29

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

If Moses, notwithstanding this, sent messengers to king Sihon with words of peace (Deuteronomy 2:26.; cf. Numbers 21:21.), this was done to show the king of the Amorites, that it was through his own fault that his kingdom and lands and life were lost. The wish to pass through his land in a peaceable manner was quite seriously expressed; although Moses foresaw, in consequence of the divine communication, that he would reject his proposal, and meet Israel with hostilities. For Sihon's kingdom did not form part of the land of Canaan, which God had promised to the patriarchs for their descendants; and the divine foreknowledge of the hardness of Sihon no more destroyed the freedom of his will to resolve, or the freedom of his actions, than the circumstance that in Deuteronomy 2:30 the unwillingness of Sihon is described as the effect of his being hardened by God Himself. The hardening was quite as much the production of human freedom and guilt, as the consequence of the divine decree; just as in the case of Pharaoh. On Kedemoth, see Numbers 21:13. בּדּרך בּדּרך, equivalent to "upon the way, and always upon the way," i.e., upon the high road alone, as in Numbers 20:19. On the behaviour of the Edomites towards Israel, mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:29, see Numbers 21:10. In the same way the Moabites also supplied Israel with provisions for money. This statement is not at variance with the unbrotherly conduct for which the Moabites are blamed in Deuteronomy 23:4, viz., that they did not meet the Israelites with bread and water. For קדּם, to meet and anticipate, signifies a hospitable reception, and the offering of food and drink without reward, which is essentially different from selling for money. "In Ar" (Deuteronomy 2:29), as in Deuteronomy 2:18. The suffix in בּו (Deuteronomy 2:30) refers to the king, who is mentioned as the lord of the land, in the place of the land itself, just as in Numbers 20:18.