21:4 Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the road to the Red Sea, 2 to go around the land of Edom, but the people 3 became impatient along the way.
1 sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.
2 tn The “Red Sea” is the general designation for the bodies of water on either side of the Sinai peninsula, even though they are technically gulfs from the Red Sea.
3 tn Heb “the soul of the people,” expressing the innermost being of the people as they became frustrated.
4 tn The expression refers to the corner or extremity of the Negev, the South.