^2:4Instruct² these people as follows: ‘You are about to cross the border of your relatives³ the descendants of Esau,⁴ who inhabit Seir. They will be afraid of you, so watch yourselves carefully. ^2:5Do not be hostile toward them, because I am not giving you any of their land, not even a footprint, for I have given Mount Seir⁵ as an inheritance for Esau. ^2:6You may purchase⁶ food to eat and water to drink from them. ^2:7All along the way I, the Lord your God,⁷ have blessed your every effort.⁸ I have⁹ been attentive to¹⁰ your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have¹¹ been with you; you have lacked for nothing.’ ”

^2:8So we turned away from our relatives¹² the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route,¹³ from Elat¹⁴ and Ezion Geber,¹⁵ and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands. ^2:9Then the Lord said to me, “Do not harass Moab and provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as your territory. This is because I have given Ar¹⁶ to the descendants of Lot¹⁷ as their possession.

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Footnotes

2 Heb “command” (so , ); “charge the people as follows.”
3 Heb “brothers”; “your kinsmen.”
4 The descendants of Esau (Heb “sons of Esau”; the phrase also occurs in 2:8, 12, 22, 29). These are the inhabitants of the land otherwise known as Edom, south and east of the Dead Sea. Jacob’s brother Esau had settled there after his bitter strife with Jacob (Gen 36:1–8). “Edom” means “reddish,” probably because of the red sandstone of the region, but also by popular etymology because Esau, at birth, was reddish (Gen 25:25).
5 Mount Seir is synonymous with Edom.
6 Heb includes “with silver.”
7 The Hebrew text does not have the first person pronoun; it has been supplied for purposes of English style (the Lord is speaking here).
8 Heb “all the work of your hands.”
9 Heb “he has.” This has been converted to first person in the translation in keeping with English style.
10 Heb “known” (so , ); “been concerned about.”
11 Heb “the Lord your God has.” This has been replaced in the translation by the first person pronoun (“I”) in keeping with English style.
12 Or “brothers”; “our kin.”
13 Heb “the way of the Arabah” (so ); , “the Arabah road.”
14 Elat was a port city at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, that is, the Gulf of Aqaba (or Gulf of Eilat). Solomon (1 Kgs 9:28), Uzziah (2 Kgs 14:22), and Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:5–6) used it as a port but eventually it became permanently part of Edom. It may be what is known today as Tell el-Kheleifeh. Modern Eilat is located further west along the northern coast. See G. Pratico, “Nelson Glueck’s 1938–1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal,” 259 (1985): 1–32.
15 Ezion Geber. A place near the Gulf of Aqaba, Ezion-geber must be distinguished from Elat (cf. 1 Kgs 9:26–28; 2 Chr 8:17–18). It was, however, also a port city (1 Kgs 22:48–49). It may be the same as the modern site Gezirat al-Fauran, 15 mi (24 km) south-southwest from Tell el-Kheleifah.
16 Ar was a Moabite city on the Arnon River east of the Dead Sea. It is mentioned elsewhere in the “Book of the Wars of Yahweh” (Num 21:15; cf. 21:28; Isa 15:1). Here it is synonymous with the whole land of Moab.
17 The descendants of Lot. Following the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, as God’s judgment, Lot fathered two sons by his two daughters, namely, Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:30–38). Thus, these descendants of Lot in and around Ar were the Moabites.