21:4 Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the road to the Red Sea, 1 to go around the land of Edom, but the people 2 became impatient along the way.
1:2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?”
“Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob 1:3 and rejected Esau. 3 I turned Esau’s 4 mountains into a deserted wasteland 5 and gave his territory 6 to the wild jackals.”
1 tn The “Red Sea” is the general designation for the bodies of water on either side of the Sinai peninsula, even though they are technically gulfs from the Red Sea.
2 tn Heb “the soul of the people,” expressing the innermost being of the people as they became frustrated.
3 tn Heb “and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.” The context indicates this is technical covenant vocabulary in which “love” and “hate” are synonymous with “choose” and “reject” respectively (see Deut 7:8; Jer 31:3; Hos 3:1; 9:15; 11:1).
4 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “I set his mountains as a desolation.”
6 tn Or “inheritance” (so NIV, NLT).