Deuteronomy 2 Summary and Study Guide

Thirty-eight years of walking ended with a single change of direction. This Deuteronomy 2 summary and study guide covers the chapter of the Bible where the circling stops, the older generation is gone, and Israel begins to take land.

Setting the Stage

At a place called Kadesh-barnea, Israel stood on the border of the land God had promised them and refused to go in. Ten of the twelve men sent to look at the country came back saying the people living there were too strong to fight. God answered with an oath: not one of the fighting men who believed that report would ever see the land, and He named Caleb and Joshua as the only two exceptions (Numbers 14:28-30; Deuteronomy 1:36-38).

Deuteronomy 1 closes with that sentence of judgment handed down and the nation sent back into the desert. Deuteronomy 2 is the sentence running out. The chapter opens with Israel still circling and closes with a kingdom in their hands.

Comprehensive Deuteronomy 2 Summary

Israel turned away from Kadesh-barnea and spent the next thirty-eight years going round the hill country of Seir. God ended it with a word. They had circled that mountain long enough, and now they were to head north.

Their route ran along the edge of Edom, and God gave orders before they arrived. Edom belonged to the descendants of Esau, and God had handed that country to them. Israel was to buy food and water with money instead of taking anything by force, because God had supplied them the whole time they were in the desert.

The same order came at Moab and again at Ammon, both of them descended from Lot. Three countries, three refusals, and the reason each time was that God had already deeded the land to somebody else.

Between those orders Moses pauses to say who used to live in those places. Giants had held all of it, and other nations had driven them out and settled in their place.

Israel crossed the brook Zered thirty-eight years after leaving Kadesh-barnea, and by then every fighting man of the older generation had died, exactly as God had sworn. Only then did God speak again. He told Israel to cross the river Arnon and take the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites.

Moses sent messengers to Sihon asking for safe passage along the main road, offering to pay for food and water on the way. Sihon refused and brought his army out to fight at Jahaz. Israel defeated him and took every city from the Arnon as far as Gilead. They left Ammon alone.

One Word Summary

• Boundaries: God fixes who owns what.
• Restraint: an army walks past land it could take.
• Ending: a thirty-eight-year sentence runs out.

In One Sentence

God turns Israel north, tells Moses to leave Edom, Moab and Ammon alone because those lands already belong to the descendants of Esau and Lot, and then hands over Sihon king of the Amorites after Sihon refuses Israel the road.

Theme of Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2 is about who decides what belongs to whom. Every command rests on the same reason: God had already assigned each country, and the two history notes in the middle show Him settling four other peoples the same way. Running alongside that is a punishment God said He would carry out and did, and the kindness He kept up while carrying it out. Underneath both is the start of trust, since the generation that would not fight when God said go now fights when He says go.

Deuteronomy 2 Outline

• Deuteronomy 2:1-3: Israel travels into the wilderness and circles mount Seir for many days until God tells them to turn north.
• Deuteronomy 2:4-7: God orders Israel to pass along Edom’s border without taking any land and to buy their food and water from Esau’s descendants.
• Deuteronomy 2:8-9: Israel turns from Elath and Ezion-gaber toward the wilderness of Moab, and God forbids any attack on the Moabites.
• Deuteronomy 2:10-12: A note records the Emims, the Anakims and the Horims who lived in those lands before Moab and Esau took them.
• Deuteronomy 2:13-15: Israel crosses the brook Zered thirty-eight years after Kadesh-barnea, by which time every fighting man of the first generation has died.
• Deuteronomy 2:16-19: God tells Israel to cross at Ar and to leave the Ammonites and their territory alone.
• Deuteronomy 2:20-23: A second note records the Zamzummims, the Horims, the Avims and the Caphtorims, and who displaced whom.
• Deuteronomy 2:24-25: God commands Israel to cross the river Arnon, fight Sihon, and begin to take his land.
• Deuteronomy 2:26-29: Moses sends messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth asking Sihon for peaceful passage along the highway.
• Deuteronomy 2:30-31: Sihon refuses to let Israel pass, and God tells Moses that the giving of Sihon’s land has begun.
• Deuteronomy 2:32-35: Sihon fights Israel at Jahaz, Israel defeats him and takes every city, keeping only the cattle and the goods.
• Deuteronomy 2:36-37: Israel takes everything from Aroer as far as Gilead and stays away from Ammonite territory.

The Message of Peace to Sihon

Before the first battle of the conquest, Moses sent Sihon a formal offer, set out in verses 26 to 29. It has four terms.

• The road only. “I will go along by the high way, I will neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left” (Deuteronomy 2:27). Israel would stay on the public highway and would not step off it into fields or property.
• Food and water paid for. “Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink” (Deuteronomy 2:28). Meat here means food of any kind, and Israel would buy both the food and the water rather than take either.
• On foot, and passing through. “Only I will pass through on my feet” (Deuteronomy 2:28). An army with no cavalry, walking, not stopping.
• A precedent already set. “As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me” (Deuteronomy 2:29). Edom and Moab had let Israel go by and had sold them supplies, and Moses names both as references.

Israel would later be given a rule of the same shape for a distant city: “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it” (Deuteronomy 20:10). Terms of peace were to be offered before a siege began. Moses did that here before the rule existed, and he did it toward a king God had already promised to hand over. The text records the offer, and it records Sihon’s refusal as the thing that started the war (Deuteronomy 2:30-32).

Observations from Deuteronomy 2

God Says “I Have Given” Four Times, and Only Once to Israel (2:5, 9, 19, 24)

Mount Seir was given to Esau, Ar was given to the descendants of Lot, Ammon’s land was given to the descendants of Lot, and then Sihon was given into Israel’s hand. One verb settles all four cases. The three closed doors and the one open door are the same decision, made by the same God, about land that was His to assign.

Four Nations Had Already Taken Land the Same Way (2:12, 21, 22, 23)

Esau’s descendants displaced the Horims, Ammon displaced the Zamzummims, Moab displaced the Emims, and the Caphtorims displaced the Avims. Each notice ends the same way, that they “dwelt in their stead,” and Moses adds of the first one, “as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them” (Deuteronomy 2:12). Israel took land the way other nations had already taken it, and the comparison lands with force on a people whose parents had been told the local giants could not be beaten (Numbers 13:31-33).

The Same Offer Is Made Twice and Answered Differently (2:6, 2:28)

God told Israel to buy food and water from Edom with money, and Moses offered Sihon exactly that arrangement in return. Edom and Moab took the deal and sold them supplies. Sihon said no and marched out to fight. The difference in the chapter is not in the terms but in the two answers.

The Word “Begin” Arrives Four Times in Eight Verses (2:24, 25, 31)

“Begin to possess it” (v24). “This day will I begin” (v25). “I have begun to give” and “begin to possess” (v31). After thirty-eight years in which nothing started, four beginnings land inside eight verses, and every one of them is God’s word rather than Israel’s initiative.

The Cities Israel Feared Are the Cities Israel Takes (2:36 with 1:28)

At Kadesh-barnea the report that stopped them was “the cities are great and walled up to heaven” (Deuteronomy 1:28). The cities were huge and their walls seemed to reach the sky. At the end of this chapter Moses writes, “there was not one city too strong for us” (Deuteronomy 2:36).

Every town in that stretch fell to them. Commentators note that the wording here is literally “too high for us,” which carries the same idea of height, so the chapter closes by answering the exact fear that opened the thirty-eight years.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Does Deuteronomy 2:29 Say Edom Let Israel Pass When Numbers 20 Says Edom Refused?

Both are true because they describe different things. Numbers 20:18-21 records Edom refusing to let Israel travel through the middle of the country, and Israel then went round the eastern edge instead. Deuteronomy 2:29 is about what happened while they were skirting that border: the Edomites let them go by, and they supplied Israel with food and water.

Many Bible teachers read the contrast as one between the Edomite people, who traded with Israel, and their king, who had refused them the road. Moses is telling Sihon that his neighbours had let Israel go by peacefully.

Did God Take Away Sihon’s Choice in Deuteronomy 2:30?

The verse states two things in one sentence: “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand.” Sihon refused Israel the road, and God hardened him.

Scripture says the same of Pharaoh, who hardened his own heart repeatedly before the account says God hardened it (Exodus 8:15; 9:12), and Paul takes that case up while holding both sides at full weight (Romans 9:17-18). The Bible leaves that tension standing, and a summary should leave it standing too.

Why Did God Command Israel to Kill the Women and Children in Deuteronomy 2:34?

Scripture states the reason plainly. God had told Abraham centuries earlier that his descendants would wait for this land, “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16). Sihon and his people were Amorites, and the measure God spoke of had finally run out.

Deuteronomy 20:18 gives the purpose behind that kind of total destruction: it was so that Israel would stay clear of the practices those peoples followed toward their gods. This is a record of what God commanded once, in one situation, through one nation acting as His agent. The New Testament reads it as history and gives the church no such commission.

Who Is Speaking in Deuteronomy 2:10-12 and 2:20-23?

The two bracketed notes about the Emims, Horims, Zamzummims, Avims and Caphtorims read like a historian’s footnote rather than a speech, and Bible teachers disagree about them. Some hold that a later editor added them to explain the ancient background for readers who no longer knew it. Others hold that Moses himself included them, since the point they make is exactly the point his sermon is making. The text itself does not say, and nothing in the chapter’s meaning depends on which answer is right.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Israel wandered aimlessly. The chapter says twice that God set the route: they turned “as the LORD spake unto me” (2:1), and they went north because God said “turn you northward” (2:3). The years were a punishment, and they were still directed.
• That the thirty-eight years were empty. Israel built nothing and conquered nothing in that stretch, and Moses still calls it a period God spent with them and blessing the work of their hands (2:7).
• That “giants” in verses 11 and 20 is a description of size. In the Hebrew it is a people group’s name, the Rephaim, which the King James renders as “giants.” The chapter does say these peoples were tall, but the word itself is a name.
• That Israel later stole Ammonite land in defiance of verse 19. Sihon had taken that territory from Moab before Israel arrived (Numbers 21:26), and Israel took it from Sihon. Jephthah made that exact argument to an Ammonite king three centuries later: “Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon” (Judges 11:15, 21-22).

Christ Connection

The clearest line from this chapter to Christ runs through verses 14 to 16, where the last of the fighting men die and the oath God swore at Kadesh finally finishes. Israel’s own worship remembered that moment. Psalm 95:11 recalls God swearing in His anger that this generation would stay outside the rest He had prepared for them.

Hebrews quotes that psalm at length and names the cause plainly: “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). Unbelief is what kept them outside. Jude says the same in one line, that the Lord saved the people out of Egypt and “afterward destroyed them that believed not” (Jude 5). The graves left behind at the brook Zered are the warning the New Testament keeps handing to the church.

Hebrews then turns the warning into an invitation: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). The rest that generation missed is still open, and the way in is not a river crossing but a person, since Hebrews goes straight on to name Jesus the great high priest who has already passed through the heavens for us (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Two other threads in the chapter point the same direction. Moses sends words of peace to a king before the sword comes out, and God deals with the world in that order still, which is why Paul writes, “we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

And Paul told the men of Athens that God “hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26), the very thing this chapter shows Him doing at four borders. Paul gives the purpose in the next breath of his sermon: God set those boundaries “That they should seek the Lord” (Acts 17:27), and he finishes at the man God has ordained to judge the world (Acts 17:31).

The border at Moab mattered more than Israel could have known at the time, because Ruth came out of the Moab this chapter told them to leave alone, and Matthew names her in the family line of Jesus (Ruth 1:4; Matthew 1:5).

When, Where, and Why

• When: The eleventh month of the fortieth year after Israel left Egypt (Deuteronomy 1:3). The events Moses recounts stretch back thirty-eight years from that day.
• Where: Moses is speaking on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan and opposite Jericho (Numbers 22:1). The events he describes run from Kadesh-barnea south to the head of the gulf at Elath and Ezion-gaber, then north along Edom’s eastern side, across the brook Zered and the river Arnon, to the battlefield at Jahaz.
• Why: Moses is preaching to the children of the men who died in the desert, and they are about to be asked to cross a river and fight. He tells them this to prove two things from their own history: God keeps what He says, including the hard part, and God had already begun handing them land before they took a single step across the Jordan.

Key Verses

“Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.”

Deuteronomy 2:3

You have gone round this mountain long enough; now head north. One sentence closes thirty-eight years, and it comes without explanation or ceremony.

“For the LORD thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the LORD thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.”

Deuteronomy 2:7

God had blessed everything Israel put their hands to, He had watched every step they took across that huge desert, and across forty years they had never gone short. The verse sits inside a punishment and says every one of those things anyway.

“And the space in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them.”

Deuteronomy 2:14

Thirty-eight years passed between Kadesh-barnea and the crossing of the Zered, and in that time every soldier of that generation died off, just as God had sworn. Moses dates the end of the wandering by the death of the men who caused it, and many Bible teachers point out that Israel fought its first battle only once every soldier trained in Egypt was gone, so the win at Jahaz could not be put down to their experience.

“From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: the LORD our God delivered all unto us.”

Deuteronomy 2:36

From Aroer on the edge of the Arnon gorge all the way to Gilead, no town was able to hold out, because God handed every one of them over. The verse tells the second generation what their parents could have had.

Key Lessons from Deuteronomy 2

• Israel could not take Edom’s land for the same reason they could take Sihon’s, because God had already decided who owned which (Deuteronomy 2:5, 24).
• Walking away from a fight can be obedience, since the order not to touch Moab came from the same voice as the order to attack Heshbon (Deuteronomy 2:9, 24).
• God kept feeding, guarding and blessing Israel through the whole of a sentence He Himself had passed on them (Deuteronomy 2:7).
• God finished what He had sworn at Kadesh, and the count of thirty-eight years is Moses saying so out loud (Deuteronomy 2:14-15).
• God had Moses send Sihon an offer of peace before the judgment fell, and Moses sent it knowing the outcome was already promised (Deuteronomy 2:26).
• Israel stopped at the Ammonite border with an army that had just taken every other city in reach, which is obedience tested by success (Deuteronomy 2:37).

For the whole book laid out at a glance, read our chapter-by-chapter guide: The Book of Deuteronomy Summary by Chapter. You can also test what you remember with our Deuteronomy 2 quiz, or read the chapter for yourself at Deuteronomy 2 (KJV).

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Deuteronomy 2:1-3. What does verse 1 say about who chose Israel’s route during the years of wandering?
2. God gives the same reason three times for leaving Edom, Moab and Ammon alone (verses 5, 9 and 19). What is that reason, and what does it say about God’s dealings with nations outside Israel?
3. Verse 7 sits in the middle of a punishment. What is God said to be doing for Israel while the sentence is being served?
4. Why does Moses date the end of the wandering by a stream crossing rather than by a battle or an anniversary (verse 14)?
5. Moses sent Sihon an offer of peace after God had already promised him the land (verses 24 and 26). What does that tell you about how God deals with people He is about to judge?
6. Compare Deuteronomy 1:28 with Deuteronomy 2:36. What changed between the two reports, and what did not?
7. Verse 37 records something Israel did not do on the day of their biggest victory. Where in your own life is God asking you to stop at a line rather than press on?

Frequently Asked Questions

Deuteronomy 2, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 Then we turned, and took our journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea, as the LORD spake unto me: and we compassed mount Seir many days.

2 And the LORD spake unto me, saying,

3 Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.

4 And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore:

5 Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a footbreadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.

6 Ye shall buy meat of them for money, that ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may drink.

7 For the LORD thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the LORD thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.

8 And when we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath, and from Ezion-gaber, we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.

9 And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.

10 The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;

11 Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.

12 The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them.

13 Now rise up, said I, and get you over the brook Zered. And we went over the brook Zered.

14 And the space in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them.

15 For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed.

16 So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people,

17 That the LORD spake unto me, saying,

18 Thou art to pass over through Ar, the coast of Moab, this day:

19 And when thou comest nigh over against the children of Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them: for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession; because I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession.

20 (That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims;

21 A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead:

22 As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day:

23 And the Avims which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the Caphtorims, which came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.)

24 Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.

25 This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.

26 And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying,

27 Let me pass through thy land: I will go along by the high way, I will neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left.

28 Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only I will pass through on my feet;

29 (As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God giveth us.

30 But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day.

31 And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land before thee: begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land.

32 Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.

33 And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.

34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:

35 Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.

36 From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: the LORD our God delivered all unto us:

37 Only unto the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not, nor unto any place of the river Jabbok, nor unto the cities in the mountains, nor unto whatsoever the LORD our God forbad us.