Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 2:8-23
It is observable here that Moses, speaking of the Edomites (Deu 2:8), calls them, "our brethren, the children of Esau." Though they had been unkind to Israel, in refusing them a peaceable passage through their country, yet he calls them brethren. For, though our relations fail in their duty to us, we must retain a sense of the relation, and not be wanting in our duty to them, as there is occasion. Now in these verses we have,
I. The account which Moses gives of the origin of the nations of which he had here occasion to speak, the Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites. We know very well, from other parts of his history, whose posterity they were; but here he tells us how they came to those countr…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 2:16
all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people--The outbreak at Kadesh on the false report of the spies had been the occasion of the fatal decree by which God doomed the whole grown-up population to die in the wilderness [Num 14:29]; but that outbreak only filled up the measure of their iniquities. For that generation, though not universally abandoned to heathenish and idolatrous practices, yet had all along displayed a fearful amount of ungodliness in the desert, which this history only hints at obscurely, but which is expressly asserted elsewhere (Eze 20:25-26; Amo 5:25, Amo 5:27; Act 7:42-43).
John Gill on Deuteronomy 2:16
So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed,.... By wasting diseases and judgments of one kind or another:
and dead from among the people; the rising and surviving generation.
John Calvin on Deuteronomy 2:9-23
Deuteronomy 2:9-23
9. And the Lord said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.
9. Et dixit mihi Jehova, Ne oppugnes Moab, neque lacessas eum bello, quia non dabo tibi e terra ejus possessionem; filiis enim Lot dedi Ar in haereditatem.
10. The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;
10. Emim antea habitabant in ea, populus magnus et multus, et excelsus, sicut Anacim.
11. Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.
11. Gigantes reputabantur etiam…
