Study Desk

Across the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this Law, saying,

'Turn and set out on your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the Negev, 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 take possession of the land which the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and their descendants after them.'

'See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.'

"Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men ahead of us, so that they may spy out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up, and the cities which we should enter.'

"And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. They also brought us back a report and said, 'The land that the LORD our God is about to give us is good.'

and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us.

except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him I will give the land on which he has set foot, and to his sons, because he has followed the LORD fully.'

"The Horites previously lived in Seir, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their place; just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the LORD gave them.)

'When you come opposite the sons of Ammon, do not attack 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, because the Rephaim previously lived in it, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin,

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

"Only you did not go near the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the LORD our God had commanded us to avoid.

"So at that time we took the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the Valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon

"The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob. (As to all Bashan, it is called the land of Rephaim.

until the LORD gives rest to your fellow countrymen as to you, and they also take possession of the land which the LORD your God is giving them beyond the Jordan. Then you may return, each man to his possession which I have given you.'

'But commission Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he shall go across leading this people, and he will give to them, as an inheritance, the land which you will see.'

"Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you will live and go in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

"See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you are to do these things in the land where you are entering to take possession of it.

"The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, so that you would perform them in the land where you are going over to take possession of it.