Now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom. “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardship that has befallen us,
Parallel translations
- WEB Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the travail that has happened to us;
- KJV And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:
- BSB From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to tell the king of Edom, “This is what your brother Israel says: You know all the hardship that has befallen us,
- NASB From Kadesh Moses then sent messengers to the king of Edom to say, “This is what your brother Israel has said: ‘You know all the hardship that has overtaken us;
- NLT While Moses was at Kadesh, he sent ambassadors to the king of Edom with this message: “This is what your relatives, the people of Israel, say: You know all the hardships we have been through.
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
Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, appealing as a brother nation for passage. Israel sought a peaceful route through related kin.
Overview
Edom descended from Esau, Jacob's brother, so Israel addresses them as 'your brother Israel.' The respectful diplomacy honors the kinship and God's prior command not to seize Edom's land (Deuteronomy 2:4-5). The appeal recounts Israel's hardships to invoke compassion from their relatives.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Judg 11:16–17but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh;
- Deut 23:7You shall not abhor an Edomite; for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
- Deut 2:4–25Command 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.
- Gen 36:31–39These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel.
- Mal 1:2“I have loved you,” says Yahweh. Yet you say, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” says Yahweh, “Yet I loved Jacob;
- Gen 32:3–4Jacob sent messengers in front of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the field of Edom.
- Obad 1:10–12For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.
- Josh 9:9They said to him, “Your servants have come from a very far country because of the name of Yahweh your God; for we have heard of his fame, all that he did in Egypt,
- Exod 18:8Moses told his father-in-law all that Yahweh had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardships that had come on them on the way, and how Yahweh delivered them.
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 20:14 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
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