1:19–21 The Israelites journeyed from Horeb directly to the “hill country of the Amorites,” a generic designation of the people of Canaan and Syria. The term amurru occurs in Old Akkadian sources of Mesopotamia meaning “west,” most frequently as an ethnic designation of those peoples bordering the Mediterranean Sea. They were foreign to the great civilizations of the East in culture as well as language. Amorites in Deuteronomy are listed as one of seven to ten nations living in the land promised to Abraham’s descendants (cf. Gen. 15:19–21). In the time of Moses there was still a kingdom of Amurru in the upper Orontes Valley, but the mighty nations of Canaan were independent of them. The last occurrences of the title “king of the Amorites” refers to Sihon in Heshbon (Num. 21:21, 26), who was conquered by the Israelites.

Moses constantly reminds the Israelites that their journeys were “as the Lord our God commanded us.” The Lord was always the commander-in-chief of this unusual army on the march. With the Lord as the commander-in-chief, there was no doubt over the outcome of their destiny. This is the land “the Lord our God is giving us.” For this reason Moses gave the charge to go up and take the land without being terrified. The term “dismayed” is from the Hebrew khathath, which has the sense of being emotionally horrified—not just afraid but filled with terror. Moses was alert to the danger that emotions might erode trust in God, particularly those of paralyzing fear.

1:22–23 In Deuteronomy Moses describes the sending of spies as an initiative of the people. In Numbers 13:2 the Lord commands Moses to send men to scout out the land. The Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, preserved into medieval times, harmonizes these accounts by inserting Deuteronomy 1:20–23a at the beginning of Numbers 13. In Numbers the Hebrew idiom says that God commanded Moses with the words “Send for yourself men to scout the land.” A Hebrew Midrash explains that making the men a choice of Moses shows that the Lord disapproved of the whole procedure. But this is inferring too much from an idiom. The request to reconnoiter the land in preparation for entry was good procedure, not in itself an indication of lack of faith. Dependence on God for the success in this venture did not preclude the necessity of proper preparation for such a large camp to proceed into hostile territory. The report of the scouts had potential to be an encouragement to enter the Promised Land. Finally, the dynamic between divine and human initiative is ambiguous not only in language but also in human experience. Awareness of utter dependence on God does not preclude using the resources God has given us.

1:24–25 Numbers 13:4–16 provides a detailed enumeration of the individuals from each tribe sent to scout the land. The scouts came to the “Valley of Eshcol” near the city of Hebron (Num. 13:22–23). The Hebrew word ʼeshkol means “grape cluster,” an appropriate name, as the area was well known for its viticulture, an important part of the economy of the area to this day. The spies returned with a single grape cluster so large it had to be carried with a pole frame. Numbers 13:21 provides additional details of the forty-day mission of the scouts, reporting that they traveled the entire land, from the wilderness of Zin, where they began, to Lebo-hamath at the sources of the Orontes River in Syria, the farthest extent of the Promised Land. This speech of Moses is a very limited summary of the forty days, expressing the most important aspect of their findings. The land was rich beyond what they could have imagined. The details of how they would travel and how the campaign would be conducted were understood to be part of the affirmation that the Lord was giving them the land. Up until this time the glory cloud was present to direct their journey, and, as Moses says in Deuteronomy 1:33, it should have been their expectation that such divine guidance would direct them in their inheritance of the land.

1:26–28 Moses moves directly from the potential of the inheritance to the response of the people. Responsibility for the failure to enter the land does not fall on the report of the scouts. Their report necessarily included an account of the people of the land and a description of their fortifications (Num. 13:28–29). This should not have resulted in faithlessness on the part of those who had seen the mighty military of Egypt sunk in the Red Sea just two years earlier. The people, however, were quick to lay the blame on the scouts: “Our brothers have made our hearts melt.” But this is no excuse; they had quite simply “rebelled against the command of the Lord.”

In terms of military strategy, there was plenty to fear. The report of fortifications and armies left the people distraught: what kind of place was this? The Anakim are the legendary giant indigenous peoples of Canaan. The Hebrew term ʻnq refers to the neck, but it is uncertain if this was the basis for naming these intimidating people in terms of their size or strength. According to Joshua 15:13 and 21:11 Anak was the son of Arba, the founder of Kiriath-arba, or Hebron. Arba was regarded as the greatest of the Anakim (Josh. 14:15), whose territory extended farther into the hill country of Judah (Josh. 11:21–22). The scouts described the Anakim as descendants of the Nephilim, the antediluvian offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men (Num. 13:33), though they cannot have meant actual physical descent, since those Nephilim did not survive the flood.

The heroic status of the antediluvian Nephilim described in Genesis 6:4 motivated the Greek translators to call them “giants” (gigantes), which is the description that has made its way into some contemporary translations. The word gigantes was used in Greek for a savage race destroyed by the gods. Because of these associations, the Greek translation also renders ʻanakim in Deuteronomy 1:28 as gigantes. Some of these giant people survived in Philistine cities. Goliath of Gath and the other powerful soldiers killed by David and his troops in 2 Samuel 21:16–22 are the last mention of these giants. The scouts apparently provided a very graphic description of the inhabitants of Canaan and their soldiers, which contributed to the terror felt by the people. They used this association for rhetorical effect, much as “Huns” was used to designate Germans during the two world wars. Huns were the confederate tribes capable of resisting the Romans in eastern Europe.

Some sense of the military power and fortifications of Canaan at this time is provided by the Amarna Tablets of Egypt.20 These letters describe much of Canaan beginning in the fourteenth century BC. Some tablets are correspondence between city kingdoms of Canaan and the pharaohs of Egypt before and during the Ramesside period, the time in which the city of Raamses was built (Ex. 1:11). These letters describe powerful kingdoms able to resist the mighty armies of Egypt or the Hittites. About a half century later Pharaoh Merneptah, son of Rameses II, erected a victory stele in which he describes his victories over powerful Canaanite kingdoms.21 These cities and their military control of large territories, such as the kings in Ashkelon, Gezer, Jerusalem, and Shechem, were what the spies observed and reported.

1:29–33 Moses reminds the people that the Lord was their guide. He was the warrior who would topple walls, just as he sunk the Egyptians in the Red Sea. He was the one who had sustained them in the wilderness. There was no reason for them to “be in dread.” But this exhortation had no effect. The people did not have faith in the God who had guided them thus far. The glory cloud may have been present to their eyes as Moses spoke. This event took place at night (Num. 14:1), which may be why Moses uses the unusual order of guidance “in fire by night and in the cloud by day.” Their trust in God had shifted to trust in military ability, a categorical failure to keep the covenant just made at Sinai.

1:34–40 The oath at Mount Sinai is countered by the oath God takes against every individual who has spoken in denial of the divine deliverance. This “evil generation” would never see the good land reported by the spies. “Evil” is a negative word used to describe unbelief. The Hebrew raʻ has a broad semantic range, including anything displeasing, harmful, painful, inferior, disagreeable, violent, or criminal. The nuances of the English word evil are appropriate to this situation. Denial of an oath and sundering relationship with God is a profound evil. Although such individuals may appear to be morally good, they have denied the essential requirement of healthy human relationships. The divine judgment is just.

Caleb was the exception to the rebellious generation denied entrance to the Promised Land. His commitment to the Lord was uncompromised, since he had fully kept the vow of the covenant. A parenthetical note, not part of the address to the people, explains the circumstances of Moses and Joshua. Moses tells the people that God was angry with him “on your account” (Deut. 1:37), a point repeated at 3:26; 4:21. Moses is denied entrance to the Promised Land because of his own sin as reported in Numbers 20:1–13. Psalm 106:32–33 includes this reference with the testing that took place at Meribah, but the parallel lines are part of a litany of failures. The punishment of Moses in Deuteronomy is not related to the rock incident, which may have occurred as late as the fortieth year. The failure of Moses to enter the Promised Land in the first speech of Deuteronomy is related to the mission of the scouts. Nothing implicates Moses in the sending of the scouts or their mission. The problem is caused by his association with the people. The unfaithfulness of the people not only prevented Moses from entering the land at Kadesh-barnea but also led to forty years of wandering with the fateful consequences that ensued. Moses would be condemned to die with them in the wilderness. Joshua of the next generation would be the general to bring them into the Promised Land.

Joshua was the only one of the elders designated to ascend the mountain with Moses to receive the tablets of the covenant (Ex. 24:13). He is named without introduction as the chief of the generals in the war against Amalek in Exodus 17:8–9, indicating that he was already distinguished at that time. As commander-in-chief, he would be the one to lead the conquest of Canaan. Joshua was divinely designated as successor to Moses in Numbers 27:18 because he was a man of spirit (ruakh), a term that includes courage, skill, strength, and commitment to God as granted by the Holy Spirit. These qualities were exemplified in the war against Amalek. His close association with Moses may have prevented him from being a spokesman for the spies. Caleb silenced the people in their protest and urged them to follow the divine leading (Num. 13:30), but his words were of no effect. The other spies spread calumnies, resulting in a mutiny against Moses and Aaron. Joshua joined Caleb in exhorting the people to trust the Lord because the people of Canaan were their prey, but they were almost stoned for their efforts (Num. 14:6–10). Thus the people are urged to be loyal and supportive of Joshua as the one to bring Israel into its inheritance.

Direct address to the people resumes with the words of the people who had protested. They claimed their innocent children, unable to determine right from wrong, would become plunder. The reality was that these children would enter the land as a possession. The rebellious people were to turn and march into the wilderness, the exact same order given at Horeb (Deut. 1:7), but now in the opposite direction and destiny.

1:41–45 The rebellion of the people was followed by further rebellion in defiantly denying the divine order. They presumptuously armed themselves with the belief they could do the very thing they had just feared and may have “thought it easy to go up” (Hb. hawan). The verb hawan, otherwise unknown in biblical Hebrew, was treated by the rabbis as a performance utterance, a declaration of preparedness for battle. It might have the sense of “ready, set, march.” Once more the people are warned: victory is possible only if God is in the battle, a declaration found in the formula for advance in Numbers 10:35–36. The ark was a type of chariot throne preceding the army. When the ark halted, the hosts of the Lord, namely, the thousands of Israel, would cease their march. In this instance of rebellion, however, the ark never left the camp (Num. 14:42–45). The Amorites swarmed them; their soldiers were pertinacious, ferocious, and numerous as bees.

The Israelites were defeated “in Seir as far as Hormah.” The name Hormah derives from the verb kharam (cf. Introduction: Theology of Deuteronomy: Fidelity to the Covenant), a place like Jericho, dedicated irrevocably to the Lord by its removal from the sphere of the common. Numbers 21:3 explains the meaning of the name and identifies its location as being near Arad, the southern part of Canaan that was the entrance to the Promised Land. Seir is the area of Edom. There is no explanation for why the attackers would have been in Seir or why they would have pursued the Israelites to Hormah in the direction of Canaan. Numbers 14:45 says only that the Israelites were pursued as far as Hormah. The Targums, an Aramaic translation of the OT, resolve the issue by taking the name as a common noun. The Israelites were pursued “unto destruction,” implying that the Israelites fled from the Amorites into Seir, where they were caught and crushed.

1:46–2:1 The exact time spent at Kadesh is not specified. The expression “many days” can refer to a period ranging from days to years. The time at Kadesh cannot have been long, because according to Deuteronomy 2:14 the Israelites began the final phase of their wandering thirty-eight years after they left Kadesh. The “days that you remained there” seem to refer to the time of their return from battle. A delay would have been a further act of disobedience, as Moses was instructed that they should move toward the Red Sea. The “many days we traveled around Mount Seir” must have been most of the thirty-eight years.

The site of el ‘Ain el-Qudeirat, identified as Kadesh, was extensively excavated until 1982, at which time the territory was returned to Egypt as part of a peace agreement with Israel. It features a massive fortress with walls 16 feet (5 m) thick and eight projecting towers. This fortress was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar as part of his campaign in the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The site is near the junction of a road leading from Suez to Beersheba and the road branching from the Via Maris near el-Arish leading to Elath (Gulf of Aqaba). The history of the site before the tenth century BC is not known. Pottery shards that date to the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC may be indicative of earlier occupations.

Some of the pottery discovered at this site is known as Qurayyah Painted Ware, named after a site in northwest Saudi Arabia, where it was found and identified. The presence of this pottery indicates strong commercial and cultural connections with the Hejaz in the northwest Arabian Peninsula. Hejaz is the territory of Midian, which was thriving with settlements at the time of the exodus. At Qurayyah a major fortified citadel has been discovered: a walled village and extensive irrigation systems. Midianite- or Hejaz-ware spread out into southern Transjordan and sites near Elath. Timnaʻ, a site north of the Gulf of Aqaba known for its copper mines, is notable for this pottery.

Moses was married to a Midianite and lived in that territory the greatest part of his life. The Midianites ranged over a wide area including northwest Arabia, southern Transjordan, the Arabah, and into the Negeb. Midianites appear to be more a league of tribes than a limited geographical area. Israelites encountered Midianites, as related in the Balaam story (Num. 22:4). Their wandering in the territory of Mount Seir seems to have been in this area known to Moses.