Devarim

Deuteronomy opens across the Jordan, in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month: Moses begins to expound the Torah to the generation about to cross. He starts at Horeb — "you have stayed long enough at this mountain" — and the command to set out for the hill country of the Amorites and the land sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He recalls the burden of the people grown numerous as the stars, and the appointment of wise and known men as chiefs and judges, charged to hear small and great alike, "for the judgment is God's."

The heart of the address is the spies retold. From Kadesh-barnea the people themselves asked for scouts; twelve went up, brought back the land's fruit, and said "the land is good" — and yet the people would not go up, murmuring in their tents that God hated them. Neither the assurance that "the LORD your God goes before you, He will fight for you," nor the memory of being carried "as a man carries his son," could move them. The oath followed: not one man of that evil generation would see the good land, save Caleb and Joshua; even Moses is included — "the LORD was angry with me also on your account." The belated charge up the mountain ended with Amorites chasing them like bees, and thirty-eight years turning in the wilderness until that whole generation of fighting men was gone.

The march resumes: Seir is passed in peace, for Esau's land is not Israel's to take, nor Moab's, given to the children of Lot; the Zered is crossed, and Ammon skirted for the same reason. Then Sihon king of Heshbon refuses passage and is given into Israel's hand, city by city; Og king of Bashan — last of the Rephaim, his iron bed nine cubits long — falls at Edrei. The conquered land east of the Jordan is assigned to Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, on the condition that their fighting men cross armed ahead of their brothers. The portion closes with the charge to Joshua: "Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings; so the LORD will do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing. Do not fear them, for the LORD your God — He it is who fights for you."