2:8 So we turned away from our relatives 1 the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, 2 from Elat 3 and Ezion Geber, 4 and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.
4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances 5 I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, 6 is giving you.
1 tn Or “brothers”; NRSV “our kin.”
2 tn Heb “the way of the Arabah” (so ASV); NASB, NIV “the Arabah road.”
3 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.
4 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.
5 tn These technical Hebrew terms (חֻקִּים [khuqqim] and מִשְׁפָּטִים [mishpatim]) occur repeatedly throughout the Book of Deuteronomy to describe the covenant stipulations to which Israel had been called to subscribe (see, in this chapter alone, vv. 1, 5, 6, 8). The word חֻקִּים derives from the verb חֹק (khoq, “to inscribe; to carve”) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim) from שָׁפַט (shafat, “to judge”). They are virtually synonymous and are used interchangeably in Deuteronomy.
6 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).
9 tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.
10 tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”
13 tn Heb “the