(It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb by the way of
Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.)
Deuteronomy 1:2 Modern English Version (MEV)
*****************
There
are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir, to Kadeshbarnea. Not that the Israelites came
thither in eleven days from Horeb, for they stayed by the way at
Kibrothhattaavah, a whole month at least, and seven days at Hazeroth; but the
sense is, that this was the computed distance between the two places; it was
what was reckoned a man might walk in eleven days; and if we reckon a day's
journey twenty miles, of which See Gill on Jon_3:3, the distance must be
two hundred and twenty miles. But Dr. Shaw (e) allows but ten miles for a day's
journey, and then it was no more than one hundred and ten, and indeed a camp
cannot be thought to move faster; but not the day's journey of a camp, but of a
man, seems to be intended, who may very well walk twenty miles a day for eleven
days running; but it seems more strange that another learned traveller (f)
should place Kadeshbarnea at eight hours, or ninety miles distance only from
Mount Sinai. Moses computes not the time that elapsed between those two places,
including their stations, but only the time of travelling; and yet Jarchi says,
though it was eleven days' journey according to common computation, the
Israelites performed it in three days; for he observes that they set out from
Horeb on the twentieth of Ijar, and on the twenty ninth of Sivan the spies were
sent out from Kadeshbarnea; and if you take from hence the whole month they
were at one place, and the seven days at another, there will be but three days
left for them to travel in. And he adds, that the Shechinah, or divine Majesty,
pushed them forward, to hasten their going into the land; but they corrupting
themselves, he turned them about Mount Seir forty years. It is not easy to say
for what reason these words are expressed, unless it be to show in how short a
time the Israelites might have been in the land of Canaan, in a few days'
journey from Horeb, had it not been for their murmurings and unbelief, for
which they were turned into the wilderness again, and travelled about for the
space of thirty eight years afterwards. Aben Ezra is of opinion, that the
eleven days, for the word "journey" is not in the text, are to be
connected with the preceding words; and that the sense is, that Moses spake
these words in the above places, in the eleven days they went from Horeb to
Kadesh.
(e) De
loc. Heb. fol. 92. I. (f) Pococke's Description of the East, vol. 1. p. 157.
John
Gill’s Exposition of the Bible
Deuteronomy 1:2 Modern English Version (MEV)
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