Deuteronomy Chapter 1

Conversational Yahveh Covenant

The Command to Leave Horeb

 1^:1Moses spoke to Israel in the open country east of the Jordan, in the Arabah across from Suph between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ² It takes 11 days to travel from Horeb/Sinai past Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. ³ The first day, eleventh month, fortieth year, Moses told Israel everything Yahveh had told him to give them. ⁴ That was after he’d defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, in Heshbon and Og, king of Bashan, in Ashtaroth and Edrei. ⁵ East of the Jordan in Moab, Moses undertook to explain the Law.        

Deut 1:1-5

⁶ “Yahveh our God told us at Horeb/Sinai, ‘You’ve stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Go to the Amorites and their neighbors in the Arabah, the hill country, the western foothills, the Negev, the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon as far as the Euphrates River. ⁸ I’ve put the land in front of you. Go in and take over what I swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants.’

Tribal Leaders Appointed

⁹ “At that time I told you, ‘I can’t handle the responsibility for you by myself. ¹⁰ Yahveh has multiplied you, and there are as many of you as stars in the sky. ¹¹ May he multiply you a thousand times and bless you like he promised, ¹² but I can’t handle the responsibility for you and your conflict by myself. ¹³ Choose wise, insightful, experienced men from your tribes, and I’ll appoint them as your leaders.’ ¹⁴ You answered, ‘That’s good.’ ¹⁵ I took those wise, insightful men, and appointed them over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.                                                                                                          

Deut 1:6-15

¹⁶ “I instructed your judges, ‘Hear cases between citizens. Judge justly between them or the foreigners among them. ¹⁷ Don’t show favoritism; hear least and greatest the same way. Don’t be afraid of people; it’s God’s judgment. Any case that’s too hard, bring to me. ¹⁸ I’ve told you everything to do.’

Spies Sent Out

¹⁹ “Then we left Horeb/Sinai and went through that terrible desert you saw on our way to the hill country of the Amorites. We came to Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰ I told you, ‘You’ve come to the hill country of the Amorites that Yahveh is about to give us. ²¹ Look, he has put the land in front of you. Take it over like he told you. Don’t be afraid or intimidated.’ ²² Then you came and said to me, ‘Let’s send scouts ahead to look over the land, and report how to proceed against the towns we’ll enter.’ ²³ I liked that idea and took a man from each tribe. ²⁴ They went to the hill country and the Valley of Eschol and spied it out. ²⁵ They brought some fruit down to us, and reported, ‘The land Yahveh our God is about to give us is a good land.’

Deut 1:16-25

Israel’s Rebellion Against the LORD

²⁶ “But you wouldn’t go up. You rebelled against Yahveh. ²⁷ You complained in your tents, ‘Yahveh hates us. He brought us out of Egypt to deliver us to the Amorites. ²⁸ Where can we go up? Our relatives made our hearts melt when they said the people are bigger and taller than we are. The towns are large and fortified to the sky. They saw Anakim there.’ ²⁹ I told you, ‘Don’t be afraid of them. ³⁰ Yahveh your God will go ahead of you and fight for you like you saw him do in Egypt. ³¹ In the desert you saw how he carried you all the way here like a man carries his son.’ ³² Despite that, you wouldn’t trust the One ³³ that goes ahead of you to find a place to camp and show you how to get there, the One that goes by fire at night and cloud by day.

Deut 1:26-33

Israel’s Wanderings Decreed

³⁴ “What Yahveh heard you say made him angry. He swore, ³⁵ ‘None of you sinful people from this generation will see the good land I swore to give your ancestors. ³⁶ Only Caleb Ben-Jephunneh will see it. I’ll give him and his descendants the land he set foot on, because he’s followed me faithfully.’ ³⁷ Yahveh was angry with me, too, as a lesson to you, ‘You won’t go in either. ³⁸ Your assistant, Joshua Ben-Nun, will go in. Encourage him; he’ll make Israel able to inherit the land. ³⁹ What’s more, your^pl little ones that you said would become prey, your offspring that don’t know good from bad, will go in. I’ll give it to them; they’ll take it over. ⁴⁰ You turn around and head out for the desert by the Red Sea.’

Deut 1:34-40

⁴¹ “Then you said, ‘We’ve sinned against Yahveh. We’ll go up and fight like he commanded.’ Every man put on his weapons and thought it would be easy to go up to the hill country.

⁴² “Yahveh said to tell them, ‘Don’t go up to fight. I’m not with you; they’ll defeat you.’ ⁴³ But you ignored him. You acted on your own to go up to the hill country. ⁴⁴ The Amorites came out like bees and chased you and crushed you from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵ You came back and cried in Yahveh’s presence, but he ignored you. ⁴⁶ So you stayed at Kadesh a long time.  

Deut 1:41-46