It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.
Parallel translations
- KJV (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)
- BSB It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir.
- NKJV It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.
- NASB It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.
- NLT Normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
It notes that the journey from Horeb (Sinai) to Kadesh Barnea was only eleven days. The brevity highlights how short the trip should have been compared to the forty years Israel actually spent.
Overview
By recording that Horeb to Kadesh Barnea was an eleven-day journey, Scripture quietly underscores the tragedy of Israel's unbelief: a short trip became a forty-year delay because of their refusal to trust God at Kadesh. The detail sets up the book's repeated warning against hardening the heart. It reminds believers that unbelief, not distance, is what keeps God's people from His rest, as Hebrews 3-4 later applies to the gospel.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Num 32:8Your fathers did so when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
- Num 13:26They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land.
- Deut 9:23When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn’t believe him, nor listen to his voice.
- Lev 2:14“‘If you offer a meal offering of first fruits to Yahweh, you shall offer for the meal offering of your first fruits grain in the ear parched with fire, bruised grain of the fresh ear.
- Lev 9:23Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of Meeting, and came out, and blessed the people: and Yahweh’s glory appeared to all the people.
- Josh 14:6Then the children of Judah came near to Joshua in Gilgal. Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know the thing that Yahweh spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning you in Kadesh Barnea.
- Num 20:17–21“Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink from the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border.”
- Deut 2:8So we passed by from our brothers the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir, from the way of the Arabah from Elath and from Ezion Geber. We turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.
- Deut 2:4Command the people, saying, ‘You are to pass through the border of your brothers the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore be careful.
- Deut 1:44The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.
- Exod 3:1Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.
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Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 1:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.