Deuteronomy 2:4-5

2:4 Instruct ¹  these people as follows: ‘You are about to cross the border of your relatives ²  the descendants of Esau, ³  who inhabit Seir. They will be afraid of you, so watch yourselves carefully. 2:5 Do not be hostile toward them, because I am not giving you any of their land, not even a footprint, for I have given Mount Seir ⁴  as an inheritance for Esau.

Deuteronomy 2:8

2:8 So we turned away from our relatives ⁵  the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, ⁶  from Elat ⁷  and Ezion Geber, ⁸  and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

Deuteronomy 2:12

2:12 Previously the Horites ⁹  lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.) ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 2:22

2:22 This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

Deuteronomy 2:29

2:29 just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us.”

---

¹ tn Heb “command” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “charge the people as follows.”

² tn Heb “brothers”; NAB “your kinsmen.”

³ sn The descendants of Esau (Heb “sons of Esau”; the phrase also occurs in 2:8, 12, 22, 29). These are the inhabitants of the land otherwise known as Edom, south and east of the Dead Sea. Jacob’s brother Esau had settled there after his bitter strife with Jacob (Gen 36:1-8). “Edom” means “reddish,” probably because of the red sandstone of the region, but also by popular etymology because Esau, at birth, was reddish (Gen 25:25).

⁴ sn Mount Seir is synonymous with Edom.

⁵ tn Or “brothers”; NRSV “our kin.”

⁶ tn Heb “the way of the Arabah” (so ASV); NASB, NIV “the Arabah road.”

⁷ sn Elat was a port city at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, that is, the Gulf of Aqaba (or Gulf of Eilat). Solomon (1 Kgs 9:28), Uzziah (2 Kgs 14:22), and Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:5-6) used it as a port but eventually it became permanently part of Edom. It may be what is known today as Tell el-Kheleifeh. Modern Eilat is located further west along the northern coast. See G. Pratico, “Nelson Glueck’s 1938-1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal,” BASOR 259 (1985): 1-32.

⁸ sn Ezion Geber. A place near the Gulf of Aqaba, Ezion-geber must be distinguished from Elat (cf. 1 Kgs 9:26-28; 2 Chr 8:17-18). It was, however, also a port city (1 Kgs 22:48-49). It may be the same as the modern site Gezirat al-Fauran, 15 mi (24 km) south-southwest from Tell el-Kheleifah.

⁹ sn Horites. Most likely these are the same as the well-known people of ancient Near Eastern texts described as Hurrians. They were geographically widespread and probably non-Semitic. Genesis speaks of them as the indigenous peoples of Edom that Esau expelled (Gen 36:8-19, 31-43) and also as among those who confronted the kings of the east (Gen 14:6).

¹⁰ tn Most modern English versions, beginning with the ASV (1901), regard vv. 10-12 as parenthetical to the narrative.