ונפן ונסע המדברה דרך ים סוף כאשר דבר, “we turned around and journeyed into the desert in the direction of the sea of reeds, as G-d had said.” ימים רבים They journeyed in the desert for 19 years from Ritma to the Zin Desert (another name for Kadesh), as reported in Parshat Chukat (see Numbers 20.1).

ויאמר ה' אלי, ‘the Lord said to me;” this was only in the fortieth year when we came to Kadesh.

ההר הזה, “this mountain.” This is Mount Seir.

פנו לכם צפונה, “turn northward!” this commandment was not meant to be carried out immediately. It went into effect only after the detour around the territory of Edom and Moav had been completed. The people appear to have misunderstood this part of the instructions. This may be why in verse 4, Moses spelled this out in greater detail. If there had had not been some misunderstanding it is not clear why they asked the King of Edom for permission to cross his territory.

ואת העם צו לאמר, “and command the people as follows:” Moses explains the warning here which he had failed to explain in Parshat Chukat. On the other hand, he does not repeat the details of the request in Numbers 20,1421.

ונעבור מאת אחינו, “we passed by our brethren, etc.” they did so by turning northward as they had been commanded in verse 3. Their point of departure was Ovot. This is why there is a most unusual end of paragraph mark (letter ס plus two blank spaces in our chumashim, in the middle of a sentence.)

ויאמר ה' אלי: אל תצא את מואב, “the Lord said to me: do not harass Moav!” He addressed me in the singular mode, but meant for this commandment to include the whole nation. The reason for this command was because Moses was going to be buried in the territory of Moav. G-d issued instructions not to harass in one way or another, three nations, Seir, Edom, and Moav. Their territories were not to be violated. (B’chor shor) We know that the territory of Seir was not to be violated as this nation was also known by the name of Chivi, as mentioned in Genesis 36,2: אהליבמה בת ענה בת צבעון החוי. One could argue that this Chivi was one of the seven nations that G-d had promised to the Israelites. In order to forestall such claim, the Torah added in our chapter in verse 12: that the Chorim used to dwell in that region originally, but they had been supplanted by the descendants of Esau who had wiped out that population just as the Israelites wiped out the Canaanite nations when they received the Holy Land fromG-d. We are to realise that basically that land belonged to the Chorim. They were not part of the seven Canaanite tribes. The reason they were called חוי, as explained in the Talmud tractate Shabbat folio 85, is that the original inhabitants the Chori, were able through their sense of smell to determine which kind of soil was most suitable to plant what kind of crop on. The Chivi, on the other hand, were able to taste the soil and determine what to grow on that particular soil. Moav, their land had originally been called the land of the Refaim, (Verse 11) and it is possible that it had been given to Avraham as stated in Genesis 15,20, so that the Israelites had a certain right to claim it as their ancestral land. The Moabites used to call the previous inhabitants of that land: Eymim. Apparently, that was their original name, and they were not identical with the Refaim given to Avraham, so that the Israelites had absolutely no prior claim to that land. Ammon. The land occupied by the Ammonites were also part of the Refaim, (verse 20) In order that no one should be able to claim it as belonging to or designated for Israel, Moses tells us what the names of the original inhabitants used to be, such as Zamzumim. They are not to be confused with the Refaim given to Avraham. A different approach: The Israelites were specifically warned not to enter into any hostilities with these three nations, although they had been included in G-d’s promise to Avraham’s descendants in chapter 15 in the Book of Genesis. The peoples referred to as: Keyni, K’nizi, and Kadmoni, are simply different names for the people more commonly known as: Ammon, Moav and Edom. By using the expression: ונשמרתם מאד, “be extremely careful no to, etc.,” Moses impresses the seriousness of the sin to contravene this warning. The Israelites did not need to be warned concerning any other nations in that region, as they had never for a moment entertained any hostile designs against them, their lands not having been promised to Avraham. Rashi comments that the promise to Avraham of the lands of the last three nations mentioned in the covenant between the pieces in Genesis chapter 15, was not meant to be fulfilled until the coming of the Messiah.

נתתי את ער ירושה, “for I have given it to the descendants of Lot as an ancestral land.”

רפאים יחשבו אף הם כענקים, “the Refaim were also considered as part of a race of giants.” They were considered as such not because of their height, but because of their physical strength. That they were not truly giants is clear from the fact that the Moabites called them Eymim. This was the name by which most people called them.

כאשר עשה ישראל, “just as the Israelites did to the land which became their ancestral heritage.” Moses is speaking of the land settled by the tribes of Reuven, Gad., and half the tribe of Menashe.

והימים אשר הלכנו מקדש ברנע, “and the number of years it took us to walk from Kadesh Barnea to the Wadi Zered were 38 years.” Not all of these years were spent walking, of course, but the total period including the encampments was 38 years, until the last of the men of military ages at the time of the Exodus had died. The reason why the river Zered is named here is that it was the first of several rivers the Israelites crossed on their march north.

ויהי כאשר תמו, “it was when they completed;” the reason why they did not cross into the land of Canaan at once was out of respect for Moses for whom it had been decreed that he could not enter the Holy Land, and it would have been painful for him to see his people crossing while he had to remain behind.

כל אנשי המלחמה, “all the fighting men;” this refers to the ones who had begun to fight against Moses’ wish after the debacle of the spies. (Numbers 14,44)

וידבר ה' אלי, “the Lord spoke to me;” Rashi comments here that since the debacle with the spies G-d had not been reported as speaking to Moses, in the mode of dibbur, which signifies fondness for the person addressed. This line proves that the Jewish people were in disgrace during the entire thirty eight years since then, and if G-d had communicated such a communication is described as amirah as opposed to dibbur. The former is a reference to a very brief and succinct communication. During all these years,G-d communicated with Moses not on the “face to face basis,” while he was awake, but by nocturnal images.

וקרבת מול בני עמון, “when you come near to being opposite the Bney Ammon;” actually they did not get to the boundary of the Bney Ammon, as their lands were to the east of both the kingdoms of Sichon and Og, king of Bashan.

ארץ רפאים תחשב אף היא, “that land was also considered as land of the Refaim.” It was considered “as if,” but in fact was not. They were really Zamzumim, because they were always implicated in a war or in the planning of a war.

היום הזה אחל תת פחדך, “this day I will begin to give the dread of you, etc;” prior to this, when the seven Canaanite nations noted that the Israelites, instead of invading the land of the Edomites or Moabites detoured around their countries, they reasoned that if the Israelites were afraid to face these nations individually, they would be even more afraid to face a combination of Canaanite nations. When they observed that the Israelites had vanquished both Sichon and Og in short order, they had to revise their attitude and began to tremble at the thought of facing them. This is what G-d meant when he told Moses that as of that day the Canaanites dreaded the military might of the Israelites.

ממדבר קדמות, “from the desert of Kedemot.” The name of that desert is related to the well known expression קדמה מזרחה, “forward in an easterly direction.” In other words, the desert took its name from the fact that it was situated in the east, as opposed to the south, where most of the deserts in the region were located. Compare Judges 11,22: ויירשו את כל גבול האמורי מארנון עד היבוק ומן המדבר עד הירדן, “and they appropriated (as an inheritance) all the territory of the Ammonites from the Arnon river to the Yabbok river and from the wilderness to the Jordan.”

דברי שלום, “with words of peace;” seeing that most of the territory possessed by Sichon had been conquered from the Moabites and the Ammonites, and not from the Canaanites, they were sincere in their offer of traversing these lands in apeaceful manner. Offering peace to the seven Canaanite nations is forbidden as we know from Deut. 20,16.

כאשר עשו לי בני עשו, “as the descendants of Esau did for me.” This was not a reference to traversing their territory, but a reference to their letting the Israelites buy their water and food from them. The Torah had never spelled this out before, but it is logical to assume that they had done so, seeing that the Torah had specifically permitted them to do so. (Deut. 2,6) Our verse merely explains what was meant in verse 6., כאשר עשו לי בני עשו היושבים בשעיר והמואבים היושבים בער“as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir have done for me, as well as the Moabites who dwell in Or.” It sounds clear that both the Moabites mentioned here as well as the Edomites mentioned here had volunteered to supply the Israelites with these victuals. This is in stark contrast to what the Torah had described in Deut. 23,4 as the reason why proselytes from the Moabites and the Ammonites must not be accepted. It says there that these two tribes had not come forward with offers of bread and water for a nation that had just come out of Egypt, and had hired Bileam to curse the Israelites. How do we reconcile these two verses? Moreover, the Talmud in tractate Yevamot, folio 77, even tells that several hundreds of years later, some of the Israelites wanted to declare King David as not fit to be their king, but as not being Jewish, since his maternal ancestor Ruth had been a Moabite, and her conversion therefore was null and void. In light of all this, some commentators feel forced to conclude that the verses from Deut. 2,6 until and including verse 29, are only Moses’ formulation of the words the delegation were to say to the rulers of that land, but are not to be understood as testimony by the Torah, and that some Moabites and some Edomites had come forward with such offers. What follows are words by Moses recalling what had happened in how making war on Sichon and Og had not been aggression by the Israelites, but self defense, as the other side had started the hostilities. Instead of understanding the Torah as telling us that the Moabites of Or and the Ammonites had been generous, Moses includes them all in a negative light. None of these kings had allowed the Israelites to cross their lands. The ones that got away with it were the ones whom G-d had commanded the Israelites not to harass as they were not Canaanites, on the contrary, were related to the Israelites through Avraham‘s family.

רק אל ארץ בני עמון לא קרבת, “only to the land of the Bney Ammon did you not come close;” according to Ibn Ezra Moses speaks only of land that was in possession of that nation at the time he spoke. This excluded the land captured from Sichon, which at one time did belong to the Bney Ammon, but which would not be returned to them by the Israelites who had taken it away from Sichon.