Deuteronomy 2:4

4 Command the people, You're about to cut through the land belonging to your relatives, the People of Esau who settled in Seir. They are terrified of you, but restrain yourselves.

Deuteronomy 2:4 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 2:4

And command thou the people
Give them a strict charge:

saying, ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children
or Esau:
not through the midst of their country, for that the king of Edom would not admit of, but by or on the border of it:

and they shall be afraid of you;
lest such a numerous body of people as Israel were should seize upon their country, and dispossess them of it, they having been so long, wanderers in a wilderness near them:

take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore;
that they did not take any advantage of their fears, and fall upon them, and do them mischief, or that they did not provoke them to battle and overcome them.

Deuteronomy 2:4 In-Context

2 Then God said,

3 "You've been going around in circles in these hills long enough; go north.

4 Command the people, You're about to cut through the land belonging to your relatives, the People of Esau who settled in Seir. They are terrified of you, but restrain yourselves.

5 Don't try and start a fight. I am not giving you so much as a square inch of their land. I've already given all the hill country of Seir to Esau - he owns it all.

6 Pay them up front for any food or water you get from them."