Study Desk

'Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads (leaders) over you.'

"So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and made them leaders over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers (administrators) for your tribes.

'You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear and pay attention to the [cases of the] least [important] as well as the great. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's. The case that is too hard for you [to judge], you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.'

"Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men [into the land] before us, so that they may explore and search the area for us, and bring back to us word regarding the way we should go, and the cities we should enter.'

'The LORD your God who goes before you will fight for you Himself, just as He did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes,

who went before you along the way, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to seek a place for you to make camp and to show you the way in which you should go.

'Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there. Encourage and strengthen him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.

'But as for you, turn around and set out for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds).'

"But the LORD said to me, 'Say to them, "Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you [because of your rebellion]; otherwise you will be [badly] defeated by your enemies."'

"Then we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, just as the LORD had told me; and we circled Mount Seir for many days.

do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as little as a footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

"For the LORD your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known about your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."'

"And the LORD said to me, 'Do not harass [the descendants of] 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 (Moab and Ammon) of Lot as a possession.'

'When you come opposite the territory of 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.'

(It is also regarded as the land of the Rephaim [of giant stature], for Rephaim used to live there, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin,

just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them; and the sons of Esau (the Edomites) dispossessed them and settled in their place [and remain there] even to this day.

As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim (Cretans, later Philistines) who came from Caphtor (Crete) destroyed them and settled in their place.)

'You will sell me food for money so that I [along with my people] will eat, and you will give me water for money so that I [along with my people] will drink; only let me [and my people] travel through [the land] on foot,

just as the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land which the LORD our God is giving us.'

"But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to travel through his land; for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to hand him over to you, as he is today.