Deuteronomy 2:4

4 Command the people: You are about to travel through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so you must be very careful.

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 The Lord then said to me,

3 'You've been traveling around this hill country long enough; turn north.

4 Command the people: You are about to travel through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so you must be very careful.

5 Don't fight with them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even an inch of it, because I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as [his] possession.

6 You may purchase food from them with silver, so that you may eat, and buy water from them to drink.