Numbers 20:14

And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh . . . —The date of the occurrence related in this and the following verses is not stated. It might be inferred frem Judges 11:16-17 that the message to the Kings of Edom and Moab was sent soon after the exodus, and that it was in consequence of their refusal that the sojourn in Kadesh was prolonged: “And (or, So) Israel abode in Kadesh” (Judges 11:17). The account, however, is too summary to admit of any certain inference in regard to time. No difficulty is involved in the fact that Edom is represented in Genesis 36 as being governed by dukes, or chiefs (alluphim), whilst in this place we read of a king. It is possible that the form of government may have been changed, or, as in the case of the rulers of Midian, the same persons who in one place are described as kings may, in another place, be described as dukes, duces, or leaders. Comp. Numbers 31:8, where the five rulers of Midian are described as kings, with Joshua 13:21, where the same persons are described as princes or chiefs.

Thus saith thy brother Israel.—The Edomites, as the descendants of Esau, who received the name of Edom (Genesis 25:30), were closely connected with the descendants of Jacob.

Benson Commentary

Numbers 20:14. All the travail — All the wanderings and afflictions of our parents, and of us their children, which doubtless have come to thine ears.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:14-21 The nearest way to Canaan from the place where Israel encamped, was through the country of Edom. The ambassadors who were sent returned with a denial. The Edomites feared to receive damage by the Israelites. And had this numerous army been under any other discipline than that of the righteous God himself, there might have been cause for this jealousy. But Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing; and now the hatred revived, when the blessing was about to be inherited. We must not think it strange, if reasonable requests be denied by unreasonable men, and if those whom God favours be affronted by men.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the marginal reference. It appears from comparing Numbers 20:1 with Numbers 33:38, that the host must have remained in Kadesh some three or four months. No doubt time was required for re-organization. In order to gain the banks of Jordan by the shortest route they had to march nearly due east from Kadesh, and pass through the heart of the Edomite mountains. These are lofty and precipitous, traversed by two or three narrow defiles. Hence, the necessity of the request in Numbers 20:17.

Thy brother - An appeal to the Edomites to remember and renew the old kindnesses of Jacob and Esau Genesis 33:1-17.

It appears from Judges 11:17 that a similar request was addressed to the Moabites.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14-16. Moses sent messengers … to the king of Edom—The encampment at Kadesh was on the confines of the Edomite territory, through which the Israelites would have had an easy passage across the Arabah by Wady-el-Ghuweir, so that they could have continued their course around Moab, and approached Palestine from the east [Roberts]. The Edomites, being the descendants of Esau and tracing their line of descent from Abraham as their common stock, were recognized by the Israelites as brethren, and a very brotherly message was sent to them.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Moses sent messengers, by God’s direction, Deu 2:1-3

Thy brother; for was not Esau (who is Edom, Genesis 36:1) Jacob’s brother? Malachi 1:2. All the travel; all the wanderings and afflictions of our parents, and of us their children, which doubtless have come to thine ears.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom,.... This country was sometimes governed by kings, and sometimes by "dukes", see Genesis 36:14. At the time of the passage of the Israelites through the Red sea, we read of the dukes of Edom, Exodus 15:15, and here, thirty nine years after, of a king of Edom, but who he was is not certain. Bishop Usher takes him to be the same with Hadar, the last of the race of kings mentioned in Genesis 36:39, to him Moses sent messengers with a request, which follows after a preamble to it; who were the messengers is not said; the place from whence they were sent is Kadesh, a city on the borders of the land of Edom; but not Kadeshbarnea, Aben Ezra says, though some are of opinion it is the same, see Numbers 20:1,

thus saith thy brother Israel; the Israelites and Edomites springing from two men, Jacob and Esau, who were twin brothers, and is observed to ingratiate themselves to the Edomites, and gain their request, pleading relation to them:

thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us; what an uncomfortable condition they had been in for many years, which was well known to Edom, a neighbouring country, as is reasonable to suppose; since the fame of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, passing through the Red sea, and being so long in the wilderness, was spread everywhere; this was said to move their pity.

Geneva Study Bible

And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of {i} Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:

(i) Because Jacob or Israel was Esau's brother, who was called Edom.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. thy brother Israel] Edom was a Semitic tribe, closely connected with Israel by blood. In Genesis 25:21-26 Esau (= Edom) and Jacob (= Israel) are represented as twin brothers.

the travail] lit. ‘the weariness’; the hardships of the long weary journey.

14–21. Permission to pass through Edom refused.

The Edomites occupied territory to the south of the Dead Sea, westward as far as Kadesh (Numbers 20:16) and southward as far as the eastern arm of the Red Sea (Numbers 21:4). The Israelites having failed long before to enter Canaan from the south, did not attempt it again (see, however, n. on Numbers 21:1-3), but proposed to enter it from the east. And if they could pass straight through Edom, their route would be greatly shortened. Edom’s refusal forced them to work round the south of the hostile country, and then northwards along its eastern border.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom. On the kings of Edom see on Genesis 36:31. It would seem probable from Exodus 15:15 that the government was at that time (forty years before the present date) still in the hands of "dukes," and that the change had but recently taken place. It is stated in Judges 11:17 that Moses sent messengers at this time with a like request to the king of Moab. We are not indeed obliged to suppose that Jephthah, living 300 years after, stated the facts correctly; but there is no particular reason to doubt it in this case. That no mention of it is made here would be sufficiently explained by the fact that the refusal of Edom made the answer of Moab of no practical moment. That Moses asked a passage through the territory of Edom implies that he had renounced the idea of invading Canaan from the south. This was not on account of any insuperable difficulties presented by the character of the country or of its inhabitants, for such did not exist; nor on account of any supposed presence of Egyptian troops in the south of Palestine: but simply on account of the fact that Israel had deliberately refused to take the straight road into their land, and were therefore condemned to follow a long and circuitous route ere they reached it on an altogether different side. The dangers and difficulties of the road they actually traversed were, humanly speaking, far greater than any they would have encountered in any other direction; but this was part of their necessary discipline. Thy brother Israel. This phrase recalled the history of Esau and Jacob, and of the brotherly kindness which the former had shown to the latter at a time when he had him in his power (Genesis 33). Thou knowest all the travel that hath befallen us. Moses assumed that Edom would take a fraternal interest in the fortunes of Israel. The parallel was singularly close between the position of Jacob when he met with Esau, and the present position of Israel; we may well suppose that Moses intended to make this felt without directly asserting it. Numbers 20:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Message of the Israelites to the King of Edom. - As Israel was about to start from Kadesh upon its march to Canaan, but wished to enter it from the east across the Jordan, and not from the south, where the steep and lofty mountain ranges presented obstacles which would have been difficult to overcome, if not quite insuperable, Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, to solicit from the kindred nation a friendly and unimpeded passage through their land. He reminded the king of the relationship of Israel, of their being brought down to Egypt, of the oppression they had endured there, and their deliverance out of the land, and promised him that they would not pass through fields and vineyards, nor drink the water of their wells, but keep to the king's way, without turning to the right hand or the left, and thus would do no injury whatever to the land (Numbers 20:14-16).

(Note: We learn from Judges 11:17, that Israel sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Moab also, and with a similar commission, and that he also refused to grant the request for an unimpeded passage through his land. This message is passed over in silence here, because the refusal of the Moabites had no influence upon the further progress of the Israelites. "For if they could not pass through Edom, the permission of the Moabites would not help them at all. It was only eventualiter that they sought this permission." - Hengstenberg, Diss.)

By the "angel" who led Israel out of Egypt we are naturally to understand not the pillar of cloud and fire (Knobel), but the angel of the Lord, the visible revealer of the invisible God, whom the messengers describe indefinitely as "an angel," when addressing the Edomites. Kadesh is represented in Numbers 20:16 as a city on the border of the Edomitish territory. The reference is to Kadesh-Barnea (Numbers 32:8; Numbers 34:4; Deuteronomy 1:2, Deuteronomy 1:19; Deuteronomy 2:14; Deuteronomy 9:23; Joshua 10:41; Joshua 14:6-7; Joshua 15:3). This city was no doubt situated quite in the neighbourhood of Ain Kudes, the well of Kadesh, discovered by Rowland. This well was called En-mishpat, the fountain of judgment, in Abraham's time (Genesis 14:7); and the name Kadesh occurs first of all on the first arrival of the Israelites in that region, in the account of the events which took place there, as being the central point of the place of encampment, the "desert of Paran," or "desert of Zin" (cf. Numbers 13:26 with Numbers 13:21, and Numbers 12:16). And even on the second arrival of the congregation in that locality, it is not mentioned till after the desert of Zin (Numbers 20:1); whilst the full name Kadesh-Barnea is used by Moses for the first time in Numbers 32:8, when reminding the people of those mournful occurrences in Kadesh in Numbers 13 and 14. The conjecture is therefore a very natural one, that the place in question received the name of Kadesh first of all from that tragical occurrence (Numbers 14), or possibly from the murmuring of the congregation on account of the want of water, which led Moses and Aaron to sin, so that the Lord sanctified (יקדּשׁ) Himself upon them by a judgment, because they had not sanctified Him before the children of Israel (Numbers 20:12 and Numbers 20:13); that Barnea was the older or original name of the town, which was situated in the neighbourhood of the "water of strife," and that this name was afterwards united with Kadesh, and formed into a composite noun. If this conjecture is a correct one, the name Kadesh is used proleptically, not only in Genesis 14:7, as a more precise definition of En-Mishpat, but also in Genesis 16:14; Genesis 20:1; and Numbers 13:26, and Numbers 20:1; and there is no lack of analogies for this. It is in this too that we are probably to seek for an explanation of the fact, that in the list of stations in Numbers 33 the name Kadesh does not occur in connection with the first arrival of the congregation in the desert of Zin, but only in connection with their second arrival (v. 36), and that the place of encampment on their first arrival is called Rithmah, and not Barnea, because the headquarters of the camp were in the Wady Retemath, not at the town of Barnea, which was farther on in the desert of Zin. The expression "town of the end of thy territory" is not to be understood as signifying that the town belonged to the Edomites, but simply affirms that it was situated on the border of the Edomitish territory. The supposition that Barnea was an Edomitish town is opposed by the circumstance that, in Numbers 34:4, and Joshua 15:3, it is reckoned as part of the land of Canaan; that in Joshua 10:41 it is mentioned as the southernmost town, where Joshua smote the Canaanites and conquered their land; and lastly, that in Joshua 15:23 it is probably classed among the towns allotted to the tribe of Judah, from which it seems to follow that it must have belonged to the Amorites. "The end of the territory" of the king of Edom is to be distinguished from "the territory of the land of Edom" in Numbers 20:23. The land of Edom extended westwards only as far as the Arabah, the low-lying plain, which runs from the southern point of the Dead Sea to the head of the Elanitic Gulf. At that time, however, the Edomites had spread out beyond the Arabah, and taken possession of a portion of the desert of Paran belonging to the peninsula of Sinai, which was bounded on the north by the desert of Zin (see at Numbers 34:3). By their not drinking of the water of the wells (Numbers 20:17), we are to understand, according to Numbers 20:19, their not making use of the wells of the Edomites either by violence or without compensation. The "king's way" is the public high road, which was probably made at the cost of the state, and kept up for the king and his armies to travel upon, and is synonymous with the "sultan-road" (Derb es Sultan) or "emperor road," as the open, broad, old military roads are still called in the East (cf. Robinson, Pal. ii. 340; Seetzen, i. pp. 61, 132, ii. pp. 336, etc.).

This military road led, no doubt, as Leake has conjectured (Burckhardt, Syr. pp. 21, 22), through the broad Wady el Ghuweir, which not only forms a direct and easy passage to the level country through the very steep mountains that fall down into the Arabah, but also a convenient road through the land of Edom (Robinson, ii. pp. 552, 583, 610), and is celebrated for its splendid meadows, which are traceable to its many springs (Burckhardt, pp. 688, 689); for the broad Wady Murreh runs from the northern border of the mountain-land of Azazimeh, not only as far as the mountain of Moddera (Madurah), where it is divided, but in its southern half as far as the Arabah. This is very likely the "great route through broad wadys," which the Bedouins who accompanied Rowland assured him "was very good, and led direct to Mount Hor, but with which no European traveller was acquainted" (Ritter's Erdk. xiv. p. 1088). It probably opens into the Arabah at the Wady el Weibeh, opposite to the Wady Ghuweir.