Deuteronomy 1:7

1:1-8 Moses spake to the people all the Lord had given him in commandment. Horeb was but eleven days distant from Kadesh-barnea. This was to remind them that their own bad conduct had occasioned their tedious wanderings; that they might the more readily understand the advantages of obedience. They must now go forward. Though God brings his people into trouble and affliction, he knows when they have been tried long enough. When God commands us to go forward in our Christian course, he sets the heavenly Canaan before us for our encouragement.

Deuteronomy 1:7-8 . To the mount of the Amorites — That is, to the mountainous country on the south part of Canaan, inhabited chiefly by the Amorites, Deuteronomy 1:19-20 ; Deuteronomy 1:44 . The country to which Moses directed the spies to go up, Numbers 13:17 . This order is not mentioned in the book of Numbers, nor a great many other things, for a knowledge of which we are indebted to this supplemental book of Deuteronomy. Behold, I have set the land before you — Hebrew, before your faces; it is open to your view, and to your possession; there is no impediment in your way. And thus is the heavenly Canaan, and the kingdom of grace which leads to it, laid open to the view and enjoyment of all believers. Which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Genesis 15:18 ; Genesis 17:7 ; Genesis 28:13 . It is not indeed said in any of these places that God confirmed his promise with an oath; but he did what was equivalent thereto; he engaged his veracity by the solemn transaction of a covenant, which is called the oath of God, Genesis 26:3 .

(7) Enter the mount of the Amorites — i.e., the southern part of Judah, from which the five kings of the Amorites, the southern confederacy of Joshua 10 (which see), arose to attack Gibeon. Israel would have marched into the heart of this territory had they entered from Kadesh, “by the way of the spies.” And unto all the places nigh thereunto.—The rest of the promised land is thus described: In the plain—of Jordan. In the mountain—the hill-country of Judah in the south, Mount Ephraim in the centre, and the mountainous district further north. In the Shephêlah—Philistia. In the Negeb—the land afterwards assigned to Simeon, in the far south of Judah. And by the sea side to the north of Carmel (see Joshua 9:1; Judges 5:17), the coasts of the Great Sea over against Lebanon, and in the territory of Asher and Zebulun, as far as Phœnicia (Genesis 49:13). The land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon.—The Canaanites held the plain of Esdraelon and the fortresses in the north. From Lebanon, the conquest would extend ultimately to the north-east, even to the great river, the river Euphrates,

Verse 7. - Go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all that dwell thereon ; literally, its dwellers or inhabitants ( שְׁכֵנָיו ). The mountain range of the Amorites, afterwards called the hill country of Judah and Ephraim, was the object which would first strike the view of one advancing from the south; and so, it stands here for the whole land of Canaan, with which it is in this context identified. Those "that dwell thereon" are the inhabitants of the whole of Canaan. The Amorites (Hebrew Emori , so called from Amor, or Emor) oftener than once appear as standing for the Canaanites generally (cf. Genesis 15:16 ; Deuteronomy 1:20, 21 , etc.). That all the inhabitants of Canaan are intended here is evident from the specification of the different districts of the land of Canaan which immediately follows. In the plain : the ' Arabah (see ver. 1). In the hills : the hill country of Judah ( Numbers 13:17 ). In the vale : the shephelah , or lowland, the country lying between the mountain range of Judah and the Mediterranean Sea, and stretching northwards from the parallel of Gaza to that of Carmel. In the south : the negeb , or southland (literally, dryness ), the district which formed the transition from the desert to the cultivated land, extending from the south of the Dead Sea westwards to Gaza, a vast steppe or prairie, for the most part pasture land.

The seashore: the narrow strip of land on the coast of the Mediterranean from Joppa to Tyre (in the New Testament, "the coast of Tyre and Sidon," Luke 6:17 ). The land of the Canaanites : the whole country of which these were the separate parts. And unto Lebanon : the Whale Mountain , so called, probably, from the snow which rests on its summit. The great river, the river Euphrates . The Phrath, or Euphrates, which has its sources in the mountains of Armenia, and in its course divides Armenia from Cappadocia, formed the eastern limit of the territory promised by God to Abraham. The epithet "great" seems to have been commonly applied to it. Callimachus calls it ' ΑΣΣυριοῦ ποταμοῖο μέγας ρόος ('In Apoll.,' 107), and Lucan has- "Quaque caput rapido tollit cum Tigridemagnus Euphrates." ( Phars.,' 3:256. ) As by much the most considerable river of western Asia, the Euphrates was known as "the river" par excellence (cf. Exodus 23:31 ; Isaiah 8:7 ; Jeremiah 2:18 ; Psalm 72:8 ). The mention of Lebanon and the Euphrates is not, as Keil suggests , "to be attributed to the rhetorical fullness of the style;" but is due to the fact that these were included in what God promised to Abraham and his seed ( Genesis 15:18 ; Exodus 23:31 ; Deuteronomy 11:24 ). Deuteronomy 1:7

Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.

To the mount of the Amorite, i.e. to the mountainous country where the Amorites dwelt, which is opposed to the plain here following, where others of them dwelt. And this is the first mentioned, because it was in the borders of the land: see below, Deu 1:19,20 . The divers parts or bounds of the land are here mentioned.

7. the mount of the Amorites—the hilly tract lying next to Kadesh-barnea in the south of Canaan. to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon—that is, Phœnicia, the country of Sidon, and the coast of the Mediterranean—from the Philistines to Lebanon. The name "Canaanite" is often used synonymously with that of "Phœnician."

7 . turn you, and take your journey ] Heb. turn you or face, and break up camp , or move on . The first of these two verbs employed with a verb of motion is used only in D (and the editorial Numbers 14:25 ) of fresh starts of the whole people on their journey through the wilderness; as here, Deuteronomy 1:40 , Deuteronomy 2:1 , or with other verbs. In JE, where used with verbs of motion, it is of individuals only; while in P it has another meaning, to look towards . On the second verb see below, Deuteronomy 1:19 . hill country of the Amorites ] Heb. Mount of the Amorite : as at the present day in Arabic, the singular mount is applied to a mountain-range. The range of Pal. W. of Jordan is meant, but especially its S. end (cp. Deuteronomy 1:20 ). The name appears very early, for Kings of the 1st Dynasty in Babylon call themselves Kings of Amurru: a name which inscriptions found at Boghaz-Keui ( Mitt. d. deutsch. Orient. Gesellschaft , Dec. 1907, 23 f.), prove to have extended to the Euphrates; but which the Tell-el-Amarna letters (about 1400 b.c.) confine to the hinterland of Phoenicia, in the N. of Palestine. Amorite , in D as in E, is the general name for all the tribes dispossessed by Israel; J has Canaanite. Winckler explains this from the origin of E in N.

Israel where the Amorites had been in force; while J, writing in Judah where Israel had not fought the Amorites, knew nothing of them but assigned the whole land to the Canaanites, whose civilisation had been paramount on the coast at the time of Israel’s entry and who continued to form an antithesis to Israel ( Gesch. Isr. i. 53). If this argument were sound, then D’s extension of the name Amorite to the S. of W. Palestine would be artificial. But Winckler himself recognises the ancient character of the tradition which calls Sîḥôn an Amorite ( op. cit. p. 52), and if the Amorites had penetrated to Moab, they had also, it is probable, extended their sovereignty as far S. on the W. of the Jordan. and unto all … nigh thereunto ] Heb. unto all its neighbours: the Arabah , i.e.