Deuteronomy 1:38-46

1:38 However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, ¹  will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land. ²  1:39 Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, ³  and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, ⁴  will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it. 1:40 But as for you, ⁵  turn back and head for the desert by the way to the Red Sea.” ⁶ 

Unsuccessful Conquest of Canaan

1:41 Then you responded to me and admitted, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do.” So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country. 1:42 But the Lord told me: “Tell them this: ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.’” 1:43 I spoke to you, but you did not listen. Instead you rebelled against the Lord ⁷  and recklessly went up to the hill country. 1:44 The Amorite inhabitants of that area ⁸  confronted ⁹  you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah. ¹⁰  1:45 Then you came back and wept before the Lord, but he ¹¹  paid no attention to you whatsoever. ¹²  1:46 Therefore, you remained at Kadesh for a long time – indeed, for the full time. ¹³ 

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

[1:38]  ² tn Heb “it”; the referent (the land) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:39]  ³ tn Heb “would be a prey.”

[1:39]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew pronoun is plural, as are the following verbs, indicating that Moses and the people are addressed (note v. 41).

[1:40]  ⁶ 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.

[1:43]  ⁷ tn Heb “the mouth of the Lord.” See note at 1:26.

[1:44]  ⁸ tn Heb “in that hill country,” repeating the end of v. 43.

[1:44]  ⁹ tn Heb “came out to meet.”

[1:44]  ¹⁰ sn Hormah is probably Khirbet el-Meshash, 5.5 mi (9 km) west of Arad and 7.5 mi (12 km) SE of Beer Sheba. Its name is a derivative of the verb חָרָם (kharam, “to ban; to exterminate”). See Num 21:3.

[1:45]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun (“he”) has been employed in the translation here for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy.

[1:45]  ¹² tn Heb “did not hear your voice and did not turn an ear to you.”

[1:46]  ¹³ tn Heb “like the days which you lived.” This refers to the rest of the forty-year period in the desert before Israel arrived in Moab.