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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Deuteronomy 1:1 - 1:1
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Deu 1:1-46. Moses’ speech at the end of the fortieth year.
These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel - The mental condition of the people generally in that infantine age of the Church, and the greater number of them being of young or tender years, rendered it expedient to repeat the laws and counsels which God had given. Accordingly, to furnish a recapitulation of the leading branches of their faith and duty was among the last public services which Moses rendered to Israel. The scene of their delivery was on the plains of Moab where the encampment was pitched
on this side Jordan - or, as the Hebrew word may be rendered “on the bank of the Jordan.”
in the wilderness, in the plain - the Arabah, a desert plain, or steppe, extended the whole way from the Red Sea north to the Sea of Tiberias. While the high tablelands of Moab were “cultivated fields,” the Jordan valley, at the foot of the mountains where Israel was encamped, was a part of the great desert plain, little more inviting than the desert of Arabia. The locale is indicated by the names of the most prominent places around it. Some of these places are unknown to us. The Hebrew word, Suph, “red” (for “sea,” which our translators have inserted, is not in the original, and Moses was now farther from the Red Sea than ever), probably meant a place noted for its reeds (Num 21:14).
Tophel - identified as Tafyle or Tafeilah, lying between Bozrah and Kerak.
Hazeroth - is a different place from that at which the Israelites encamped after leaving “the desert of Sinai.”