Israel Wanders in the Desert

2 Then we turned ·around [^Lface], and we traveled on the ·desert [wilderness] road toward the ·Red [or Reed] Sea [Ex. 10:19], as the Lord had told me to do. We traveled through the mountains of ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] for many days.

² Then the Lord said to me, ³ “You have traveled through these mountains long enough. Turn north ⁴ and give the people this command: ‘You will soon go through the land that belongs to your ·relatives [brothers], the ·descendants [sons] of Esau who live in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44]. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. ⁵ Do not go to war against them. I will not give you any of their land—not even a foot of it, because I have given the mountains of ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] to Esau as his own. ⁶ You must pay them in silver for any food you eat or water you drink.’”

⁷ The Lord your God has blessed everything you have done; he has protected you while you traveled through this ·great desert [vast wilderness]. The Lord your God has been with you for the past forty years, and you have had everything you needed.

⁸ So we passed by our ·relatives [brothers], the ·descendants [sons] of Esau who lived in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44]. We turned off the ·Jordan Valley [^LArabah] road that comes from the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber and traveled along the ·desert [wilderness] road to Moab [Num. 20:14–21].

The Land of Ar

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, “Don’t ·bother [harrass] the people of Moab. Don’t go to war against them, because I will not give you any of their land as your own; I have given Ar to the ·descendants [^Lsons] of Lot as their own.” ¹⁰ (The Emites, who lived in ·Ar [^Lit] before, were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites. ¹¹ The Emites were thought to be ·Rephaites [or Rephaim; 3:11, 13; Gen. 14:5], like the Anakites, but the Moabite people called them Emites. ¹² The Horites also lived in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] before, but the ·descendants [^Lsons] of Esau forced them out and destroyed them, taking their place as Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their own.)

¹³ And the Lord said to me, “Now get up and cross the Zered ·Valley [Wadi].” So we crossed the ·valley [wadi]. ¹⁴ It had been thirty-eight years from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered ·Valley [Wadi]. By then, all the fighting men ·from that time [^Lof that generation] had died, as the Lord had ·promised [sworn] would happen [Num. 14:20–23]. ¹⁵ The [^Lhand of the] Lord ·continued to work [^Lwas] against them to remove them from the camp until they were all dead.