Ver. 21 Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his country,.... Notwithstanding their near relation to each other, and the fair promises Israel made:
wherefore Israel turned away from him: patiently bearing the refusal, and not resenting it; being ordered, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it, by the Word of heaven, not to make war with them, because the time was not yet come to take vengeance on Edom by their hands; and to the same purpose the Targum of Jerusalem.