1. Then we turned and took our journey. The time in which they struck their camp is not stated in the book of Numbers. This verse, therefore, will aptly connect the history, since otherwise there would be an abruptness in what immediately follows, he then briefly indicates what was the nature of…

4. And they shall be afraid of you. This temptation was the more provoking, when they heard not only that the embassy would be vain, but that although Edom should receive them with injustice and hostility, they were still to abstain from violence and arms.

Deut. 2:7 For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. This reason is added, lest the people should be grieved at spending their money, of which they had not much, in buying meat and drink.

9. And the Lord said unto me, Distress not the Moabites. He had previously forbidden them to enter the land of Edom, unless consent were obtained. A similar prohibition is now added with respect to the Moabites, because God had allotted to them the territory which they inhabited.

10. The Emims dwelt therein in times past. This is a confirmation of the foregoing declaration, which is, however, inserted by way of parenthesis by Moses himself; for the ninth verse, which I have just expounded, is followed regularly by the thirteenth, “Now rise up,” etc.

13. Now rise up. He now proceeds with what he had begun in verse 9, viz, that God had commanded them to pass by the land of Seir, and to advance to the brook Zered; as much as to say, that after they had been subdued by their misfortunes, they were prohibited from further progress, until God should…

19. And when thou comest nigh over against the children ofAmmon. God now makes provision as to the Ammonites, since their condition was the same as that of the Moabites, inasmuch as they were descended from the two daughters of Lot.

Deut. 2:24. Rise ye up, take your journey. I have lately said that the order is here inverted, for what soon after follows, “And I sent messengers out of the wilderness,” etc., Deut.