Deuteronomy 1:46

Deu 1:46 So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode [there].

Ver. 46. So ye abode in Kadesh many days.] Many indeed; yea, many years. And here it was, or hereabouts, that they received those laws which are recorded, {Num 15:1-41} as also that they stoned him that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day; that Korah and his accomplices perished; that fourteen thousand seven hundred died of the plague; that Aaron’s rod flourished; that Moses, seeing the people fall so fast in the wilderness, wrote Psa 90:1-17, - where he telleth us that the ordinary term of man’s life was reduced to seventy or eighty years, and so made shorter by half than before. All which things are thought to have happened in the last six months of the second year after their coming out of Egypt: the history of those two years only, and of the last of the forty are set forth by Moses: the intercurrent thirty seven years with their events, save only the bare names of their various stations, {Num 33:1-56} being passed over in silence. If men will take liberty to commit sin against God, he will make but a short story of them and their works: Lot, for instance. {Gen 19:36}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So ye abode at Kadesh many days--That place had been the site of their encampment during the absence of the spies, which lasted forty days, and it is supposed from this verse that they prolonged their stay there after their defeat for a similar period.

Next: Deuteronomy Chapter 2

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 46. According unto the days that ye abode there.] They had been a long time at this place, see Nu 13:27; Nu 20:1; Nu 20:14; Nu 20:21. And some think that the words mean, "Ye abode as long at Kadesh, when you came to it the second time, as ye did at the first." Or, according to others, "While ye were in that part of the desert, ye encamped at Kadesh."

1. As one grand object of the law of God was to instruct the people in those things which were calculated to promote their peace and insure their prosperity; and as they were apt to lose sight of their spiritual interests, without a due attention to which their secular interest could not be promoted; Moses, not only in this chapter, but through the whole book, calls upon them to recollect their former miserable situation, in which they held neither life nor property but at the will of a merciless tyrant, and the great kindness and power of God manifested in their deliverance from a bondage that was as degrading as it was oppressive. These things properly remembered would lead them to prize their blessings, and duly appreciate the mercy of their Maker.

2. But it was not only this general display of God's kindness, in the grand act of their deliverance from Egypt, that he wished them to keep constantly in view, but also that gracious providence which was manifested in every step they took; which directed all their movements, provided for all their wants, continually showing what they should do, how they should do it, and also the most proper time and place for every act, whether religious or civil. By bringing before them in one point of view the history of almost forty years, in which the strangest and most stupendous occurrences had taken place that had ever been exhibited to the world, he took the readiest way to impress their minds, not only with their deep obligation to God, but also to show them that they were a people on whom their Maker had set his heart to do them good, and that if they feared him they should lack nothing that was good. He lays out also before them a history of their miscarriages and rebellion, and the privations and evils they had suffered in consequence, that this might act as a continual warning, and thus become, in the hands of God, a preventive of crimes.

3. If every Christian were thus to call his past life into review, he would see equal proofs of God's gracious regards to his body and soul; equal proofs of eternal mercy in providing for his deliverance from the galling yoke and oppressive tyranny of sin, as the Israelites had in their deliverance from Egypt; and equal displays of a most gracious providence, that had also been his incessant companion through all the changes and chances of this mortal life, guiding him by its counsel, that he might be at last received into glory. O reader, remember what God has done for thee during thy forty, fifty, c., years! He has nourished, fed, clothed, protected, and saved thee. How often and how powerfully has his Spirit striven with thee! How often and how impressively thou hast heard his voice in his Gospel and in his providences! Remember the good resolutions thou hast made, the ingratitude and disobedience that have marked thy life how his vows are still upon thee, and how his mercy still spares thee! And wilt thou live so as to perish for ever? God forbid! He still waits to be gracious, and rejoices over thee to do thee good. Learn from what is before thee how thou shouldst fear, love, believe in, and obey thy God. The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, is still before the throne; and whosoever cometh unto God through him shall in nowise be cast out. He who believes these things with an upright heart will soon be enabled to live a sanctified life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(46) So ye abode in Kadesh many days.—Better, and. In Num_14:25 the command was, “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness.” This command was broken by the attack on the Canaanites, made on the morrow after the command. We cannot be certain that the many days spent in Kadesh were spent after the defeat. It may be merely a note of the fact that the time spent in Kadesh was considerable. The mission of the spies alone occupied forty days.

According unto the days that ye abode there.—The Jewish commentator Rashi, quoting from Sêder Olâm, says they in Kadesh, and nineteen in their wanderings.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

46. So ye abode in Ḳadesh] So JE, Num_20:1 b, but apparently of a later residence than this.

many days, according unto the days that ye abode there] ‘An example of the “idem per idem” idiom often employed in the Semitic languages, when a writer is either unable or has no occasion to speak explicitly’ (Driver). Cp. Deu_9:25, Deu_29:16 [15]; 1Sa_23:13, etc.

If this verse be from the writer of the rest of this discourse the time implied cannot, in the light of his further statements in Deu_2:1; Deu_2:14, amount to years; for the 2nd of the 40 years was already either wholly or nearly exhausted and these verses state that all the next 38 were spent between Ḳadesh and the Moabite frontier. But as we shall see in the introd. to the next section JE attributes to the people a very long residence in Ḳadesh, in fact the bulk of the 38 years. Probably, therefore, the indefinite statement of this verse is not from the writer of the rest of this discourse, but from an editor aware of the divergent traditions; in further evidence of which observe that he uses the simple Ḳadesh instead of the Ḳadesh-barnea‘ employed in the rest of the discourse.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So ye abode in Kadesh many days,.... Yea, some years, as some think:

according to the days that ye abode there; that is, according to Jarchi, as they did in the rest of the journeys or stations; so that as they were thirty eight years in all at several places, they were nineteen years in Kadesh; the same is affirmed in the Jewish chronology (w). Maimonides says (x) they were eighteen years in one place, and it is very probable he means this; but Aben Ezra interprets it otherwise, and takes the sense to be, that they abode as many days here after their return as they did while the land was searching, which were forty days, Num 13:25, but without fixing any determinate time, the meaning may only be, that as they had been many days here before this disaster, so they continued many days after in the same place before they marched onward into the wilderness again.

(w) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24. (x) Moreh Nevochim. par. 3. c. 50.

Next: Deuteronomy Chapter 2

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Time. Hebrew adds, "according to the days that you abode." All the time that the Hebrews spent in that neighbourhood they remained at Cades-barne. The Rabbins say 38 years; but Moses informs us, that they were so long in coming thence to the torrent of Zared, chap. ii. 14. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

i.e. As you abode in Kadesh many, even forty days, until the spies which you sent returned to give you an account; so you also abode there many days, or a long time after, and were not now permitted to make any further progress towards Canaan.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

46. Abode in Kadesh many days — This verse has been variously interpreted. Some understand it to mean that the Israelites remained there after their discomfiture as many days as they had been there before the return of the spies; some, that they abode there as long as they abode in all other stations — that is, half the time of their years of wandering; others, that a portion of the people abode at Kadesh permanently, while Moses and the rest journeyed southward; and the change of the subject to the first person in the next chapter is held to sustain this latter view. From the data that we have, it is impossible to determine how long they abode there. Probably Kadesh was the central point for the whole people, the place of meeting on appointed days. Here the tabernacle may have been kept, and here Moses chiefly dwelt. “Next to Sinai, the most important of all the resting-places of the children of Israel is Kadesh.” — STANLEY’S Sinai and Palestine. “There is something mournfully solemn and emphatic in the words, ‘Ye abode in Kadesh.’ Ye were on the very borders of Canaan, but instead of passing the frontier and entering into the Land of Promise ye abode at Kadesh; and when you moved from it, it was not to go northward into Canaan, but southward in the opposite direction; and after thirty-seven years’ weary wandering ye had only arrived at Kadesh again. Such were the consequences of disobedience.” — Wordsworth.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It was unnecessary that Moses should tell the people the precise length of time they abode in Kadesh after this, because that was well known to them; he, therefore, contents himself with saying that they remained there as long as they did remain. (comp. for a similar expression, Deu_9:25) How long they actually remained there cannot be determined, for the expression, many days, is wholly indefinite.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ותשבו בקדש ימים רבים SO YE ABODE IN KADESH MANY DAYS — viz., nineteen years, as it is said here כימים אשר ישבתם, ACCORDING TO THE DAYS THAT YE ABODE, i.e. abode at all the other stations. They (the total years) were thirtyeight years; nineteen of them they spent at Kadesh, and nineteen years they went moving about aimlessly, and then they returned to Kadesh, as it is said, (Numbers 32:13) “And he made them move about in the wilderness”. — Thus have I found in Seder Olam 8.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.