Deuteronomy 2 Footnotes

2:12 The land the Lord had already given Israel was not the land of Canaan west of the Jordan but the land of the Amorite kings whom Moses had already defeated and whose territories Israel already occupied (2:26–3:10; see Nm 21:21-35). This historical note is not, therefore, from a later hand; it was well within Moses’s experience and ability to record.

2:21 God’s destruction of various peoples was neither capricious nor without purpose. As an all-knowing One, he knew the various Canaanite and other neighboring peoples to be beyond repentance (2:30).

2:30 King Sihon’s hardness of heart (or spirit) was indeed brought about by the Lord, but it must be understood as a divine result of a process already begun by Sihon himself. The pharaoh of the exodus illustrates the same process. He first hardened himself against the Lord (Ex 7:13,22; 8:15,19), and then, when all hope of changing his mind was gone, the Lord hardened him for his own purpose (Ex 9:12; 10:1,27; see Rm 1:24,26,28).

2:34 The complete destruction of men, women, and children underscores the idea of corporate solidarity. All members of a community, or even of a family, are blessed or judged together (Nm 16:1-35; Jos 7:22-26). Yet, within that framework, each individual is ultimately responsible to God for their own destiny (Jr 31:29-30; Ezk 18:2,4). Moreover, were these nations to survive, Israel would be drawn away into idolatry (Dt 7:1-4).