Deuteronomy 2:18

2:18 “Today you are going to cross the border of Moab, that is, of Ar. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 1:5

1:5 So it was in the Transjordan, in Moab, that Moses began to deliver these words: ² 

Deuteronomy 34:5

34:5 So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab as the Lord had said.

Deuteronomy 2:8

2:8 So we turned away from our relatives ³  the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, ⁴  from Elat ⁵  and Ezion Geber, ⁶  and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

Deuteronomy 34:6

34:6 He ⁷  buried him in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knows his exact burial place to this very day.

Deuteronomy 34:8

34:8 The Israelites mourned for Moses in the deserts of Moab for thirty days; then the days of mourning for Moses ended.

Deuteronomy 2:9

2:9 Then the Lord said to me, “Do not harass Moab and provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as your territory. This is because I have given Ar ⁸  to the descendants of Lot ⁹  as their possession.

Deuteronomy 29:1

Narrative Interlude

29:1 (28:69) ¹⁰  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ¹¹ 

Deuteronomy 32:49

32:49 “Go up to this Abarim ¹²  hill country, to Mount Nebo (which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho ¹³ ) and look at the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Israelites as a possession.

Deuteronomy 34:1

The Death of Moses

34:1 Then Moses ascended from the deserts of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. ¹⁴  The Lord showed him the whole land – Gilead to Dan,

¹ sn Ar. See note on this word in Deut 2:9.

² tn Heb “this instruction”; KJV, NIV, NRSV “this law”; TEV “God’s laws and teachings.” The Hebrew noun תוֹרָה (torah) is derived from the verb יָרָה (yarah, “to teach”) and here it refers to the Book of Deuteronomy, not the Pentateuch as a whole.

³ tn Or “brothers”; NRSV “our kin.”

⁴ tn Heb “the way of the Arabah” (so ASV); NASB, NIV “the Arabah road.”

⁵ sn Elat was a port city at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, that is, the Gulf of Aqaba (or Gulf of Eilat). Solomon (1 Kgs 9:28), Uzziah (2 Kgs 14:22), and Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:5-6) used it as a port but eventually it became permanently part of Edom. It may be what is known today as Tell el-Kheleifeh. Modern Eilat is located further west along the northern coast. See G. Pratico, “Nelson Glueck’s 1938-1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal,” BASOR 259 (1985): 1-32.

⁶ sn Ezion Geber. A place near the Gulf of Aqaba, Ezion-geber must be distinguished from Elat (cf. 1 Kgs 9:26-28; 2 Chr 8:17-18). It was, however, also a port city (1 Kgs 22:48-49). It may be the same as the modern site Gezirat al-Fauran, 15 mi (24 km) south-southwest from Tell el-Kheleifah.

⁴ tc Smr and some LXX mss read “they buried him,” that is, the Israelites. The MT reads “he buried him,” meaning in the context that “the Lord buried him.” This understanding, combined with the statement at the end of the verse that Moses’ burial place is unknown, gave rise to traditions during the intertestamental period that are reflected in the NT in Jude 9 and in OT pseudepigraphic works like the Assumption of Moses.

⁵ sn Ar was a Moabite city on the Arnon River east of the Dead Sea. It is mentioned elsewhere in the “Book of the Wars of Yahweh” (Num 21:15; cf. 21:28; Isa 15:1). Here it is synonymous with the whole land of Moab.

⁶ sn The descendants of Lot. Following the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, as God’s judgment, Lot fathered two sons by his two daughters, namely, Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:30-38). Thus, these descendants of Lot in and around Ar were the Moabites.

⁶ sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

⁷ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

⁷ sn Abarim. This refers to the high plateau region of the Transjordan, the highest elevation of which is Mount Pisgah (or Nebo; cf. Deut 34:1). See also the note on the name “Pisgah” in Deut 3:17.

⁸ map For the location of Jericho see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

⁸ sn For the geography involved, see note on the term “Pisgah” in Deut 3:17.