Deuteronomy 1:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

These be the words which Moses spake In the last encampment of the Israelites, which was in the plains of Moab, there being now but two months before the death of Moses, and their passage into the land of Canaan. Moses spent this last part of his time in laying before them an account of their travels, and of the many singular providences, mercies, and judgments which had attended them; in repeating and enlarging upon the several laws which God had prescribed for their civil and religious conduct in that promised country; and in the most pressing applications, and earnest persuasions, to a grateful and dutiful obedience. These things, here termed words, with his last prophetic blessing upon their tribes, constitute the subject of this book. Unto all Israel Namely, by their heads or elders, who were to communicate these discourses to all the people. In the wilderness over against the Red sea This is undoubtedly a wrong translation, for they were now at a vast distance from the Red sea, and in no sense over against it. סו Š, Suph, here rendered Red sea, is, no doubt, the name of a town or district in the country of Moab, of which see Numbers 21:14. The Red sea is never expressed by Suph alone, but always by ים סו Š, Jam Suph. This place seems to have been near the Dead sea, and to have had its name Suph, a rush, from the many flags or rushes which grew there. Between Paran This cannot well be meant of the wilderness of Paran, mentioned Numbers 10:12, for that was far remote from hence; but of some place in the country of Moab, as Suph was, and the rest of the places which here follow. And Dizahab Hebrew, די זהב, Di zahab, which the Vulgate renders, Where there is much gold, as the words signify. Perhaps it had its name from some mines of gold that were there; which circumstance seems to have determined the Seventy to render it καταχρυσεα, golden places, or gold mines.