Читать книгу The Book of Deuteronomy - Preparation for the Promised Land - Kenneth B. Alexander Alexander - Страница 12

Moses first address to the people (Dt 1:6-4:40 is a chronological review of Israel in the wilderness – the travels and events that occurred over the preceding 40 years (see map previous page). Moses brought the address in the 8th month of the fortieth year (Dt 1:3) just prior to the entrance to Canaan. Of significance is the fact that before the spies returned with the bad report (Nu 13-14) Moses had every intention of going straight to the Promised Land and conquering it. He related the events: “Turn and set your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negev and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ‘See, I have placed the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to them and their descendants after them” (Dt 1:7–8). It was an eleven days’ journey from Horeb (Sinai) by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. But for the bad report the Land could have been conquered in a short time, not the 40 years it finally took them (Dt 1:2).

Moses goes on to point out that they set out from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the LORD our God had commanded them; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. And he said to them at that time: ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the LORD our God is about to give us. ‘See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you; GO UP, TAKE POSSESSION, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Dt 1:19–21). But it did not turn out as Moses planned (Note: At all times mentioned herein God (YHWH) was speaking and moving through Moses).

The eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea (v. 2) was fraught with danger and difficulty as v. 19 makes clear. The Paran desert through which it passed was “vast and dreadful,” a situation described in great detail in the long itinerary account of Num 11:1–12:16. There must have been great relief then in reaching Kadesh Barnea, a large oasis with abundant springs and pastures. Most scholars identify it with modern ’Ain Qedeis, a major crossroads for travel between the south Sinai and the central hill country of Canaan and between the Gulf of Elath and the Mediterranean Sea. It was to become the principal place of residence for the twelve tribes for the next thirty-eight years.

Kadesh means holy, or Kadesh-Barnea: sacred desert of wandering, a place on the south-eastern border of Palestine, about 165 miles from Horeb. It lay in the “wilderness” or “desert of Zin” (Gen. 14:7; Num. 13:3–26; 14:29–33; 20:1; 27:14), on the border of Edom (20:16). From this place, in compliance with the desire of the people, Moses sent forth “twelve spies” to spy the land. After examining it in all its districts, the spies brought back an evil report, Joshua and Caleb alone giving a good report of the land (13:18–31). Influenced by the discouraging report, the people abandoned all hope of entering into the Promised Land. They remained a considerable time at Kadesh. (See Hormah; Korah.) Because of their unbelief, they were condemned by God to wander for thirty-eight more years in the wilderness. They took their journey from Kadesh into the deserts of Paran, “by way of the Red Sea” (Deut. 2:1). (One theory is that during these thirty-eight years they remained in and about Kadesh.)

At the end of these years of wanderings, the tribes were a second time gathered together at Kadesh. During their stay here at this time Miriam died and was buried. Here the people murmured for want of water, as their forefathers had done formerly at Rephidim. Moses, irritated by their chidings, “with his rod smote the rock twice,” instead of “speaking to the rock before their eyes,” as the Lord had commanded him (comp. Num. 27:14; Deut. 9:23; Ps. 106:32, 33). Because of this act of his, in which Aaron too was involved, neither of them were to be permitted to set foot within the Promised Land (Num. 20:12, 24). The King of Edom would not permit them to pass on through his territory, and therefore they commenced an eastward march, and “came unto Mount Hor” (20:22).[iv]

Having arrived at Kadesh Barnea, Moses urged his people to move on into the Amorite hill country, the southern reaches of which lay only a few miles to the north. At last they had come to the land that the Lord was about to give them. In fact, Moses asserted the possession of the land was such an absolute certainty that he could speak of it as the land “the LORD your God has given you” (v. 21). The difference is that theologically and by divine grant from ancient times (cf. Gen 13:14–17) the occupation of the land was a fait accompli (a done deal) but historically and practically it was yet to be taken (hence the participle of v. 20). In any event, whether in potential or in fact, the land lay open to the people for their taking. The urgency of Moses’ insistence that they do so may be seen in the double imperatives “go up, take possession” (v. 21; cf. v. 8), which in the Hebrew text (unlike the NIV) lacks any conjunction (Dt 1:20–21).

Even though God had commanded them to go and take the land Moses and the elders decided to send spies into the land. Though the plan to send spies may have bespoken a lack of total trust in God and, in fact, resulted in an undermining of Israel’s resolve to enter Canaan at all (vv. 26–28). However one can hardly criticize sending the spies as imprudent or impractical in such circumstances. In fact, the command (or at least permission) of the Lord in the first place (Num 13:1–2) is sufficient to show that the procedure was not totally lacking of divine support.[v]

So from there Moses relates that 12 spies were sent into the land to determine whether it was indeed the good land God had promised. But the Israelite spies were fearful and dismayed and reported that even though the land was as God said it was that the people of the land were strong and could not be defeated (see details in Numbers).

Moses said: “Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; and you grumbled in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. ‘Where can we go up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we saw the sons of the Anakim [nephilim] there.”’ “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be shocked, nor fear them. ‘The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked, until you came to this place.’ “But for all this, you did not trust the LORD your God” (Dt 1:26–32).

Moses relates that God was very angry with the people and swore none of them would see the Promised Land but that God would give it to their sons (except for Caleb and Joshua). Curiously Moses said: “The Lord was angry with me also on your account, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter there” (Dt 1:37). Moses is referring to events related in Numbers 20:24 in which God said to Moses and Aaron: “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore YOU SHALL NOT BRING THIS ASSEMBLY into the land which I have given them.” That verse in Numbers could be read two ways (i.e. that Moses and Aaron would not lead Israel into the Land or that “this assembly, the assembly that grumbled” he would not lead into the land). If the former were the way God meant it than He never intended Moses and Aaron to be alive at the time of conquering of the Land. Thus, in that case, Moses striking the rock (Nu 20) was not the reason he was not allowed into the Land but God had decided much earlier. Apparently that was the way Moses understood it. If God had meant that Moses would not lead only the rebellious people into the Land, but their sons, then the sin at Meribah was determinative when he struck the rock in anger. If Moses’ interpretation was correct he knew 40 years earlier he would not lead the people into the Land.

However the Israelites were convicted about having brought a bad report (they felt as though they had sinned) and decided they would attempt an attack on the Canaanites on their own without the ark of the Covenant or, as it turns out, the blessing of God. Moses said: “And the LORD said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up, nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies.”’ “So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of the LORD, and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country. “And the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and crushed you from Seir to Hormah. “Then you returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD did not listen to your voice, nor give ear to you” (Dt 1:42–45). The Israelites were beaten badly and humiliated.

The Amorites, for the Canaanites generally, defeated Israel. In Numbers, the Amalekites are specially mentioned as joining with the Amorites in chastising the Israelites. These tribes came down from the higher mountain range to the lower height which the Israelites had gained, and drove them with great slaughter as far as Hormah, in Seir, chasing them as bees do, a pursuit with keen ferocity those who disturb them. Hormah (Ban-place), the earlier name of which was Zephath (Judg. 1:17), was a royal city of the Canaanites, taken by the Israelites towards the close of their wanderings, and placed by them under a ban (Nu. 21:1, etc.), which ban was fully executed only in the time of the Judges.[vi] There could not be any hesitation in order that Israel might capitalize on the element of surprise but, more importantly, because the Lord, “the God of your fathers,” had thus commanded.

We will learn more about a ‘ban’ in Joshua but a definition here is appropriate. After battle it often happened that the Israelites observed a ‘ban’ (ḥērem), which meant that a whole city or country, people and possessions, would be set apart for God. No Israelite was permitted to appropriate for personal needs anything or anyone belonging to a place which had been put under a ban; failure in this matter met with the direst consequences (Jos. 7; 1 Sa. 15). The Israelites were not allowed the spoils of the battle. Sometimes the ban might not be so comprehensive as in the case of Jericho (Jos. 6:18-24) (where everything was destroyed) but always the right of God to the fruit of victory was being asserted. The ban was God’s way of dealing with ‘the iniquity of the Amorites’ (Gn. 15:16) and is central to the OT concept of ‘the holy war’. Moreover, if pagan tendencies were discovered among the Israelites themselves, the offending community was likewise to be put under a ban (Dt. 13:12-18). And if the whole nation incurred God’s displeasure, as they often did, then the agents of retribution could be the very pagans whom God had previously repudiated (Is. 10:5-6; Hab. 1:5-11). The ultimate is reached at the end of the monarchical period, when God announces his intention of himself fighting against Judah and on the side of the Babylonians (Je. 21:5-7). For a considerable time, however, the prophetic community had enjoyed the assurance of a better hope—nothing less than the eradication of war from the earth and the inauguration of a new era of peace by a Davidic ‘Prince of Peace’ (Is. 9:6 cf Is. 2:4; Mi. 4:3).[vii]

Oh the grievous consequences of unbelief. Moses rehearses in the hearing of Israel the strange story of “their manners in the wilderness,” and reminds them how their unbelief had provoked the Lord to anger, and had deprived vast numbers of them of the rest they had hoped to enjoy. We ought to be at no loss how to apply this to present day uses. The Holy Spirit by the mouth of David renews the warning voice. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, both by argument and exhortation, repeatedly says: “Therefore, as long as the promise of entering his rest remains valid, let us be afraid lest someone among you fails to reach it. For we have had the good news told to us as well as to them, but the message they heard did not help them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened to it. For we who have believed are entering that rest, just as he has said, “So in my anger I swore a solemn oath that they would never enter my rest,” even though his works had been finished since the foundation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day as follows: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works,”and again in this place, “They will never enter my rest” (Heb 4:1-5). Likewise Hebrews said: “Take heed lest a like evil befall you” (Heb. 3:7–19; 4:1–11). All God really requires is obedience because he is able to see situations we are not able to see as and following Him cannot but bring success.

There is a complete arrangement for meeting all our wants on the way to a nobler rest. In treading the way, we now have a far better Leader than Moses. We have far clearer light than Israel had. We have fuller and richer promises. We have a far higher rest in view. Throughout the way there will be demands on our faith. There is a danger from within, lest we should distrust God. Are we not conscious of such a danger? Our hearts are sinful, and predisposed to doubt. We have doubted God very much, and thus wronged him in times gone by. Such unbelief may take or may have taken the form of presumption or of despair. The latter kind of unbelief may be almost indefinitely varied. Men may doubt (1) the power of God to bring them to the rest; or (2) the willingness of God to do it; or (3) the readiness of God to bring them to the rest, without questioning his care for others; or they may even go so far as to doubt (4) whether the promises of the rest be Divine; (5) whether there is any such rest as the one promised; and even (6) whether there is any God of promise. Whichever of these forms a despairing unbelief may assume, the evil of it is sufficiently manifest. It is the greatest dishonor which we can cast on God, to allow the thought to gain the mastery that we are flung down hither without any sure destiny of blessedness being disclosed, or without any certainty of reaching it being made known. How can we enjoy any future rest? What sympathy with God can we have? Besides, God declares, “They shall not enter into my rest.” In that heavenly rest none can or will share who do not implicitly believe the promise and loyally obey the precept. And how much more serious it will be to trifle with Christ, than to slight Moses (Heb. 10:28–31)!

But there is a very bright side to this subject. While unbelief will shut us out of fulfillment nothing else will! Nothing can shut us out of our reward but doubting God! Poverty cannot. Persecution cannot. Reproach cannot. Obscurity cannot. No one shall ever sink who trusts his God. See that young and weak believer who has turned his back on the world, and set his face heavenward. A thousand difficulties bristle up in all directions. But he meets them all, saying, “God called me, God will help me, God will lead me, God will guard me.”

“A feeble saint shall win the day,

Though death and hell obstruct the way!”[viii]

CHAPTER 2

Vers. 1–23.—Journeying of Israel from Kadesh to the frontier of the Amorites.

The Israelites spent many years at Kadesh and it was not time to march towards Cannon. In order to get there they had to pass through or beyond the Edomites, descendants of Esau in Seir. The Lord spoke: “and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful; do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession” (Dt 2:4-5). So the Israelites went past the Edomites and turned and passed through the wilderness of Moab. Then the LORD “Do not harass Moab, nor provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession. Remember Moab was the incestuous offspring of one of the daughters of Lot (v. 2:9).

The Lord said: “‘Now arise and cross over the brook Zered yourselves.’ So we crossed over the brook Zered”. Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea, until we crossed over the brook Zered, was thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them (Dt. 2:13-15). The Lord said further to cross over Ar, the border of Moab. And when you come opposite the sons of Ammon, do not harass them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.’ Ammon was the second illegitimate son of Lot. Apparently the Lord, after all these years, honored His commitment to Lot (at least for the time being) (Dt. 2:16-19).

After having passed by the Ammonites and Edomites Israel came to the brook Zered which formed the boundary line between Edom and Moab, and was the limit of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness. They crossed it thirty-eight years after the doom had been pronounced upon them at Kâdesh, and during that period the entire generation of those who had rebelled had died out.

Sihon and his people were Amorites, who had settled on the east of the Jordan in Gilead. But though not included in the original promise to Abraham, God had assigned this territory to the Israelites; and, therefore, he commanded the people under Moses to cross the Arnon and take the first step towards possessing the promised land, by assailing Sihon, King of Heshbon. This would assure them that from that day he would “put the dread and fear of them upon all nations under the whole heaven,” that is, all nations, wherever placed, to whom the fame of the Israelites should come (comp. Exod. 23:27; ch. 11:16).So the nations hearing of Israel should tremble and writhe as in pain (Isa. 13:8).

Moses, however, in the first instance, sent a message of peace to Sihon, proposing to pass through his territory on the same terms as he had made with the Moabites and Edomites, travelling by the highway, and paying for such provisions as his followers required. But this Sihon refused, and came out against Israel, with all his people, to battle. The issue was that he was utterly discomfited; all his towns were captured, he and all his people utterly destroyed, and the cattle and spoil of the whole country taken for booty. Israel thus became possessed of that entire territory, though it did not lie within the bounds of the land promised by God to Abraham, which was the reason, probably, why Moses made overtures of peace to Sihon, and would have passed through his country amicably, had he been permitted (Dt 2:24-37). Sihon had rejected Moses’ overtures of peace, because God had hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate; literally, “had sharpened his heart”; had made his determination keen. God had determined to give Sihon and his land to the Israelites, and so certainly should this be done, that Moses is exhorted already to begin to seize, in order to possess the land. Sihon initiated hostilities by coming out with his entire host to fight against Moses and the Israelites. The battle took place at Jahaz (or Jahazah, or Jahza), a town between Medeba and Dibon (Euseb.; cf. Numb. 33:45), afterwards belonging to the tribe of Reuben (Josh. 13:18), and assigned to the Levites of the line of Merari (Josh. 21:36; 1 Chron. 6:78). The war was one of extermination, in which all the people of Sihon were destroyed, from one end of his dominion to the other; all his cities were devoted irredeemably (comp. Lev. 27:29), and only the cattle and the material property were preserved as booty by the conquerors (Numb. 21:23–26).

In obedience to the Divine injunction, the Israelites left untouched the country of the Ammonites, situated on the eastern side of the Upper Jabbok. Cities in the mountains; the towns in the Ammonitish highlands. In Joshua. 13:25, half of the land of the Ammonites is said to be assigned to the tribe of Gad; but that refers to the part of the land between the Arnon and the Jabbok, which had been taken from the Ammonites by the Amorites, and was in the possession of the latter at the time of the Israeli invasion (Judg. 11:13, etc.). Whatsoever the Lord our God forbad us literally, all the land that Jehovah our God commanded us, not to come into.

Og, who was of the same giant race as the Moabites and Ammonites ruled over the northern half of the region of Gilead and over all Bashan. This district also God purposed Israel to possess; and therefore, before crossing the Jordan, a diversion was made northwards by the Israelites, for the purpose of attacking this powerful chief. Og encountered them with all his host, but was signally defeated, and he and all his people were exterminated. Not fewer than three score fortified cities, besides villages, were captured by the Israelites, the whole country was subjugated, and all the cattle and material property taken as booty (cf. Numb. 21:33–35) (Dt 3:1-11).

Ver. 11.—Bashan was of old possessed by a giant race, the Rephâim (Gen. 14:5); but of these Og, King of Bashan, was, at the time of the Israeli invasion, the sole remnant. His vast size is indicated by the size of his bedstead, which was preserved in Rabbath-Ammon, perhaps as a trophy of some victory obtained by the Ammonites over their gigantic foe. This measured nine cubits in length, and four in breadth, “after the cubit of a man,” i.e. according to the cubit in common use. Taking the cubit as equal to eighteen inches, the measure of the bedstead would be thirteen feet and a half by six feet.

Vers. 12–17.—Distribution of the conquered land. The countries thus conquered by the Israelites were assigned by Moses to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. The southern portion, from Aroer, in the valley of the Arnon, to the Jabbok, with its towns (see Josh. 12:15–20, 24–28), was assigned to the Reubenites and the Gadites; and the northern portion, from the Jabbok, comprehending, with Gilead, the whole of Bashan, or Argob, to the half tribe of Manasseh.

Conclusion of the Historical Recapitulation (Vers. 3:18–29). Joshua was appointed as Moses’ successor in the leadership (3:21-22) Ver. 21.—At that time, i.e. after the conquest of the land on the east of the Jordan (see Numb. 27:12, etc.). Thine eyes have seen, etc. Joshua was directed

to what he had himself witnessed, what his own eyes had seen, in the destruction of Sihon and Og and their hosts, that he might be encouraged to go forward in the course to which he had been called; and the people are reminded of this, that they may keep in mind what God had done for Israel, and may without fear follow Joshua as their leader to the conquest of Canaan.

“Moses prayed that he be allowed to cross over and see the Promised Land. “Let me, I pray, cross over and see the fair land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.’ “But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me; and the LORD said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter. ‘Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and north and south and east, and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. ‘But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him; for he shall go across at the head of this people, and he shall give them as an inheritance the land which you will see” (Dt 3:25-28).

The recitation of history over Israel is now urged to obey God’s Laws. “AND now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, in order that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Dt 4:1-2). Thus ends Moses first discourse, the review of the desert wanderings.

[iv]

Easton, M.G.: Easton's Bible Dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996, c1897

[v]

Merrill, E. H. (1994). Vol. 4: Deuteronomy. The New American Commentary (73). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[vi] Deuteronomy. 1909 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.). The Pulpit Commentary (19). London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

[vii] Wood, D. R. W. ; Marshall, I. Howard: New Bible Dictionary. 3rd ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1996, S. 1229

[viii] Deuteronomy. 1909 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.). The Pulpit Commentary (21–22). London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.