Moses then reminded them of their wandering in the wilderness by Way of the Red Sea and skirting around Mount Seir. After doing this for many days The LORD had spoken to Moses and told him to lead the people northward through the land of the descendants of Esau in Seir. He told them that the inhabitants would be afraid of them, but they must not meddle with them (v1-7). God had given that land to Esau and his descendants. It was theirs. The Israelites could buy food and water from them, and He assured them, “…. For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing”.
God was not only faithful to the Israelites, but He was also faithful to Esau, the brother of Jacob, who had fraudulently obtained the birth right which should have gone to Esau. Esau’s descendants were the Edomites, and they occupied the land of Edom. You can read more about their land and the people in the book of Obadiah. Even though they had treated the children of Israel badly, they were to be treated with respect.
They had gone past Edom and then by the Way of the Wilderness of Moab. The Moabites were also relatives, they were descendants of Lot. God told them not to harass Moab nor fight with them for the land had been given to them by God. It was not part of the Promised Land. One of the most famous Moabites was Ruth who became a believer and follower of God after leaving the gods of her people and we read that beautiful story in the book which bears her name. Amazingly she became an ancestor of The Messiah.
The Moabites included the Emim, who were a large fearsome body of people like the Anakim and Rephaim and Zamzummin (v20). Often translated as ‘giants’ but could mean ‘a fearsome people.’ Again, The LORD told them not to meddle with the people of Moab (Ammonites). That land belonged to them and was not part of the Promise to Israel. (v16-23) Just as with Esau and the land of Edom, God had fought for people of Moab for them to occupy that land.
The people were to cross the Valley of the Zered which took thirty-eight years wandering from Kadesh Barnea and eventually came back to Kadesh Barnea, in sight of the Promised Land. During those thirty-eight years “…. all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, just as the LORD had sworn to them. For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp until they were consumed.” Verses 8-15 seem to cover that time while those who disobeyed The LORD, died off so that a faithful people would enter the Land of Promise.
God had told them to get up and move over the River Arnon for He had given them Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon and his land. He told them to begin to possess it and engage in battle with him. That was all very well but how did they know they were going to win. They got their answer – “I (The LORD) will begin to put dread and fear of you upon all the nations, who shall hear the report of you, and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.”
What more could they ask for? We are reminded by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And in 1 Corinthians 15:57,58 – “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
Moses reminded them that God had worked for them in dealing with Sihon king of Heshbon when he had refused to allow them to pass through his land. They had said that they would keep to the road and if necessary, buy food and water from them. God hardened Sihon’s heart against them so that He could deliver him into their hands when he came out against them to fight at Jahaz. God enabled them to defeat Sihon and his people, taking all his cities and destroying them. They took livestock for plunder and the spoil. No-one was too strong for them for The LORD displayed His power as they only went where He told them. (v24-37) If only they had trusted The LORD nearly forty years earlier, they could have been in the Promised Land.
