Deuteronomy 2:10-15 - The Lord's hand was against them

2:10-12

We now get a brief account of what had happened in the past. The Edomites (descendants of Esau) had driven out the Horites, who had driven out the Emites, who were like the Anakites. The Anakites were the very people that Israel had feared (Dt 1:28). Decisions based on fear are rarely good decisions. Today when people talk about ancestral rights to land and the like, they are often talking a load of nonsense. The ways that various lands have been occupied by various peoples throughout history and throughout the world are far from simple!

2:13-15

ESV has “brook Zered” and NIV “Zered valley”. The ESV translation is literally the more correct. However, the Zered brook was actually a “wadi”, meaning it flowed only after it rained, it was not a continuously flowing river. So NIV could be said to be more geographically correct. We are then told that the generation of fighting men who had refused to enter the Promised Land had now all died off. God’s judgements are serious, and will be carried out. If we imagine that God will not carry out judgement then we are fools.