Now rise up, and pass over the torrent Zered. And we passed over the torrent Zered.
Israel wandered for thirty-eight years because they had refused to enter Canaan. Then came the order to cross one small stream, and with that crossing the wandering ended.
Older English versions add two words to this verse that change who is speaking. One writer flags the problem:
Deuteronomy 2:13 — Be careful to leave out the words "said I"; no authority stands behind them. This is really the word of Jehovah, not something Moses said along the way.
The ESV leaves those words out. The command to rise and cross is God's own word, not a travel plan Moses judged to be timely.
The distance involved was never the problem. Moses has already reminded them how short the road was:
Verse 2 tells us that from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea is eleven days' journey. It was when Israel was in Kadesh Barnea that God told them to enter the land of Canaan and Israel refused. So this Scripture stresses one thing. If Israel had obeyed the Lord, they might have entered the land only eleven days after leaving Mount Horeb. Their disobedience stretched the time to about forty years. Moses spoke to them here just one month before the forty years was complete. This tells believers today that our own wilderness history does not have to be long. But our selfish nature makes it necessary for God to put us through the trial of hard circumstances, so that we learn that obedience is the only way of blessing.
The refusal at Kadesh was no small lapse. One writer weighs what those men turned down:
These men had made their choice at Kadesh; they did not have the faith to go up and conquer the land of Canaan, as Caleb and Joshua had urged them to do. Frightened by the enemy, they had renounced God's desire for them to possess it.
Crossing this brook was not just another stage of travel. It was a boundary line, and it was permanent:
All the men of war who had come out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upwards, had passed away by death. What changes these were! Besides all this, the wilderness wanderings had ceased, and for ever, the moment Israel had crossed the brook Zered.
Another writer draws out what changed once that water was behind them, and what it means for us:
They had really left the wilderness. The thirty-eight years of wandering there were over, and they had taken up the real journey again. They were not turning back to Egypt. When they crossed the brook Zered, the wilderness testing was over, and they were truly bound for Canaan… They want only to pass through the enemy's country in peace, for they are going to Canaan. They want nothing that belongs to it; they ask only to be let through. So for us, if our hearts are true to the heavenly calling, we want nothing of the world except to pass on in peace; for we are going to heaven.
God had already told Israel they had gone around the mountain long enough. The call to rise and cross puts the same test to them:
Happy position! Privileged path! Blessed portion! But it called for a broken will — an obedient mind — a heart that submits. Jehovah had said, "You have gone around this mountain long enough." If they then made a plan to go around it a little longer, they would have had to go around it without Him. They could count on His companionship, His counsel and His help only in the path of obedience.
Later in the chapter a pattern appears, and it still holds for us:
First comes the Divine act: "I have given," or, "I have begun to give." Then comes the call to the people, "Begin to possess." God deals with us today on similar lines, as we see in the New Testament letters. First He unfolds what He has given us in Christ. Then come the calls to begin to possess in practice all that He has given, in the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us.
- The word starts it. The order to rise and cross is God's own, not Moses' travel plan. Older versions add "said I"; leave it out.
- The delay was self-made. Eleven days of road turned into forty years. Unbelief at Kadesh, not distance, set the timetable.
- The cost was a generation. Fear of the enemy made those men refuse to go up, and they died before Israel reached the stream.
- The crossing was final. Once Israel passed Zered the wandering ended for good, and the journey to Canaan began again.
- The pattern continues. God gives first, then calls His people to take hold of the gift — but we find His companionship and help only in the path of obedience.
Now the days in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we had come over the torrent Zered, were thirty-eight years; until the whole generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, as Jehovah had sworn unto them.
One line covers a whole era: thirty-eight years from Kadesh-barnea to the brook Zered. The count ended only when a whole generation of fighting men had died, which raises two questions — why the long delay, and what changed when the counting stopped?
The number covers the gap between the second and third stage of Israel's journey out of Egypt. One writer lines up the stages with the time each took:
They had started from Egypt for Sinai... So their arrival at Sinai was, in a sense, the completion of the first stage of the journey. The second was Kadesh Barnea, reached by the people before the end of the second year after the Exodus. And the third was the plains of Moab, having left the wilderness for ever, when they had crossed the brook Zered. Sinai to Kadesh is eleven days of travel. Between Kadesh and the brook Zered thirty-eight years ran by.
Nothing in the route required thirty-eight years. The delay began with a decision made at Kadesh:
These men had made a choice at Kadesh. They did not have the faith to go up and conquer the land of Canaan, as Caleb and Joshua had urged them to do. Frightened by the enemy, they had rejected God's desire for them to have it.
So the years were not spent covering ground. One writer sees the whole stretch as a trial:
The flesh is put on trial with God: thirty-eight years going through all this process instead of eleven days.
The count ran on until the fighting men were gone. God had said in advance that it would happen:
Israel was now told to move on. It had been 38 years since they left Kadesh Barnea, where they refused to enter the land. The men of that earlier generation had died, just as the Lord had told them they would (vs.14-15).
Israel found it harder to accept that sentence than to hear it. One writer draws out the lesson:
It is very hard to walk humbly and patiently in the path that our own failure has made necessary for us. Israel's unbelief, in refusing to go up into the land, meant that, in the way God governed them, they had to turn back and wander in the wilderness for forty years. They were unwilling to submit to this. They kicked against it. They could not bow their necks to the yoke they now had to wear.
Moses does not stand outside the story as he retells it. He includes himself — our leaving Kadesh-barnea, and we crossed the brook. That small word carries weight:
But what wonderful grace! The LORD went along with them, and of course the faithful turned back just as much as the unfaithful. How good the Lord is! ... Moses says, "We turned," not merely "You." "So we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And we traveled around Mount Seir many days."
The wandering did not just fade out. It ended at a place they could point to:
They had truly left the wilderness. The thirty-eight years of wandering there were over, and the real journey had started again. They were not turning back into Egypt now. When they crossed the brook Zered, the wilderness testing was over, and they were truly bound for Canaan.
The same number turns up again in a man who lay helpless for thirty-eight years. One writer sets the two side by side:
The man had lain ill for exactly the same number of years as Israel had withered away in the wilderness — Deut. 2:14-16. God in grace gave Israel the land when all the men of war were gone. In the same way, grace meets the poor man's full need when his strength was gone and he had no one to help.
- Eleven days, thirty-eight years. Sinai to Kadesh was eleven days. Kadesh to the brook Zered took thirty-eight years. The gap measures unbelief, not distance.
- A choice, not a route. The delay traces back to one decision at Kadesh: fear of the enemy, and refusal of what God wanted them to have.
- Flesh on trial. Those years put the flesh on trial. The same process took thirty-eight years instead of eleven days.
- The yoke they would not bow to. It is very hard to walk humbly in a path our own failure has made necessary. Israel kicked against it.
- Zered ends it. When they crossed that brook, the testing was over and the nation was truly bound for Canaan. Grace acted when their strength was gone.