Deuteronomy 1:34-40

Judgment at Kadesh Barnea

1:34 When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow: ¹  1:35 “Not a single person ²  of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors! 1:36 The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; ³  he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me.” ⁴  1:37 As for me, the Lord was also angry with me on your account. He said, “You also will not be able to go there. 1:38 However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, ⁵  will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land. ⁶  1:39 Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, ⁷  and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, ⁸  will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it. 1:40 But as for you, ⁹  turn back and head for the desert by the way to the Red Sea.” ¹⁰ 

[1:34]  ¹ tn Heb “and swore,” i.e., made an oath or vow.

[1:35]  ² tn Heb “Not a man among these men.”

[1:36]  ³ sn Caleb had, with Joshua, brought back to Israel a minority report from Canaan urging a conquest of the land, for he was confident of the Lord’s power (Num 13:6, 8, 16, 30; 14:30, 38).

[1:36]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun (“me”) has been employed in the translation, since it sounds strange to an English reader for the Lord to speak about himself in third person.

[1:38]  ⁵ tn Heb “the one who stands before you”; NAB “your aide”; TEV “your helper.”

[1:38]  ⁶ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the land) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:39]  ⁷ tn Heb “would be a prey.”

[1:39]  ⁸ sn Do not know good from bad. This is a figure of speech called a merism (suggesting a whole by referring to its extreme opposites). Other examples are the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9), the boy who knows enough “to reject the wrong and choose the right” (Isa 7:16; 8:4), and those who “cannot tell their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). A young child is characterized by lack of knowledge.

[1:40]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew pronoun is plural, as are the following verbs, indicating that Moses and the people are addressed (note v. 41).

[1:40]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Reed Sea.” “Reed” is a better translation of the Hebrew סוּף (suf), traditionally rendered “red.” The name “Red Sea” is based on the LXX which referred to it as ἐρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης (eruqra" qalassh", “red sea”). Nevertheless, because the body of water in question is known in modern times as the Red Sea, this term was used in the translation. The part of the Red Sea in view here is not the one crossed in the exodus but its eastern arm, now known as the Gulf of Eilat or Gulf of Aqaba.