We have here, I. The date of this sermon which Moses preached to the people of Israel. A great auditory, no question, he had, as many as could crowd within hearing, and particularly all the elders and officers, the representatives of the people; and, probably, it was on the sabbath day that he delivered this to them. 1. The place were they were now encamped was in the plain, in the land of Moab (Deu 1:1, Deu 1:5), where they were just ready to enter Canaan, and engage in a war with the Canaanites. Yet he discourses not to them concerning military affairs, the arts and stratagems of war, but concerning their duty to God; for, if they kept themselves in his fear and favour, he would secure to them the conquest of the land: their religion would be their best policy. 2. The time was near the end of the fortieth year since they came out of Egypt. So long God had borne their manners, and they had borne their own iniquity (Num 14:34), and now that a new and more pleasant scene was to be introduced, as a token for good, Moses repeats the law to them. Thus, after God's controversy with them on account of the golden calf, the first and surest sign of God's being reconciled to them was the renewing of the tables. There is no better evidence and earnest of God's favour than his putting his law in our hearts, Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20.
II. The discourse itself. In general, Moses spoke unto them all that the Lord had given him in commandment (Deu 1:3), which intimates, not only that what he now delivered was for substance the same with what had formerly been commanded, but that it was what God now commanded him to repeat. He gave them this rehearsal and exhortation purely by divine direction; God appointed him to leave this legacy to the church. He begins his narrative with their removal from Mount Sinai (Deu 1:6), and relates here, 1. The orders which God gave them to decamp, and proceed in their march (Deu 1:6, Deu 1:7): You have dwelt long enough in this mount. This was the mount that burned with fire (Heb 12:18), and gendered to bandage, Gal 4:24. Thither God brought them to humble them, and by the terrors of the law to prepare them for the land of promise. There he kept them about a year, and then told them they had dwelt long enough there, they must go forward. Though God brings his people into trouble and affliction, into spiritual trouble and affliction of mind, he knows when they have dwelt long enough in it, and will certainly find a time, the fittest time, to advance them from the terrors of the spirit of adoption. See Rom 8:15. 2. The prospect which he gave them of a happy and early settlement in Canaan: Go to the land of the Canaanites (Deu 1:7); enter and take possession, it is all your own. Behold I have set the land before you, Deu 1:8. When God commands us to go forward in our Christian course he sets the heavenly Canaan before us for our encouragement.

After he had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon,.... Either Moses, speaking of himself in the third person, or rather the Lord, to whom Moses ascribes the victory; of this king, and his palace, and the slaughter of him, see Num 21:24,

and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei; or near Edrei; for Edrei was not the name of a country, in which Ashtaroth was, but of a city at some distance from it, about six miles, as Jerom says (g); hither Og came from Ashtaroth his palace to fight with Israel, and where he was slain, see Num 21:33. Ashtaroth was an ancient city formerly called Ashtaroth Karnaim, and was the seat of the Rephaim, or giants, from whom Og sprung; see Gill on Gen 14:5, see also Deu 3:11. Jerom says (h) in his time there were two castles in Batanea (or Bashan) called by this name, nine miles distant from one another, between Adara (the same with Edrei) and Abila; and in another place he says (i) Carnaim Ashtaroth is now a large village in a corner of Batanea, and is called Carnea, beyond the plains of Jordan; and it is a tradition that there was the house of Job.

(g) De loc. Heb. fol. 87. I. (h) lbid. E. (i) De loc. Heb. fol. 89. M.

Ashtaroth--the royal residence of Og, so called from Astarte ("the moon"), the tutelary goddess of the Syrians. Og was slain at

Edrei--now Edhra, the ruins of which are fourteen miles in circumference [BURCKHARDT]; its general breadth is about two leagues.