Deuteronomy 2

Many Bibles say “Red Sea.” But the Hebrew words are yam suph, “sea reeds.” It can mean any body of water where reeds grow along the banks. Moses and the Hebrew refugees escaped from the Egyptian army through a path God made in one of these mysterious bodies of water. Scholars usually track Moses and the Hebrews escaping Egypt by walking southeast, out of the Nile Delta fields and toward the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula. They would have passed through lake regions along what is now the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These lakes and ponds reportedly had reeds growing along the banks, like the ones the Bible says grew along the Nile River and helped anchor Baby Moses in a basket (Exodus 2:3).

Elath and Ezion-gerber were seaport cities on the northern tip of the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba.

Ar was sometimes apparently used as a nickname for Moab, much like Zion is for Jerusalem. But some scholars say that at other times, as in 2:18, it’s the name of a city in Moab, near the Arnon river canyon. That’s in what is now the country of Jordan.

Descendants of Anak—the Anakites or Anakim—are described as giants (Deuteronomy 2:10-11, see also Numbers 13:22).

Rephaites, whoever they were, remain a mystery. They have been described as an ancient race of giants. Some speculate they were the original people who lived in the region of Bashan, now called the Golan Heights.

Horites show up in Genesis 36:20. Some scholars link them to the Hurrians, people who lived throughout the ancient Middle East, in what is now Israel, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. But the Horites here are described as the original natives of the Seir hills.

Literally, the Wadi Zered. A wadi is a normally dry pathway that can become a stream or river during a flash flood or in the rainy season of winter.

For refusing to invade Canaan when God ordered it, God told the Israelites, “You’re going to die in the badlands. All the men in your armies—everyone age 20 and older who complained about me—dead” (Numbers 14:29).

This Ar sounds like a Moabite city near the northern border. See also the note about Ar at 2:9.

More literally, the invaders were Caphtorim, people from Caphtor. Scholars say this is likely a reference to the “Sea People,” who in about the 1200s BC, invaded Egypt and what is now the Palestinian region of Gaza, along with the coast of Israel. Scholars suggest that Caphtor was the ancient name for the Mediterranean island of Crete, and that Caphtorim was the original name of the fierce fighting people who became known as the Philistines.