Deuteronomy 1:2

It is a journey of eleven days (only) from Horeb by the way of Mount Gebal unto Rekem Giah; but because you declined and provoked the Lord to displeasure, you have been retarded forty years.

Scripture says eleven days to tell us that Moshe spoke these words during those eleven days wherein they traveled from Ḥorev to Qadesh Barnea. I shall later inform you that the spies started out from Qadesh Barnea [comment on: 3] [see also Numbers 32: 8]; after God swore that they would not enter the land, no new commandments were given until the fortieth year — for so it is written [Bava Batra 121a–121b] [Ta‘anit 30b] [cf. 2: 16–17]. Conclusive evidence is found in the phrase “to expound this Torah” [: 5]: He explained the Torah that he had already spoken between Paran and Tofel. Note that most of the Commandments are repeated in this book. Accordingly, the upcoming phrase “all that God had commanded him concerning them” [: 3] is properly modified by the preceding phrases “across the Jordan” [: 1] and “in the desert wilderness” [: 1]. If you can grasp the mystery behind the following problematic passages: 1) The final twelve verses of this book 2) “Moshe wrote…” [31: 22] 3) “At that time, the Canaanites dwelt in the land” [Genesis 12: 6] 4) “…In the mountain of God , He will appear” [Genesis 22: 14] 5) “behold, his bed is a bed of iron…” [3: 11] you will then understand the truth. There are those who say that the reason for mentioning It is eleven day’s journey from Ḥorev, by way of Mount S̀eir, to Qadesh Barnea is to stress that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years — hence, the contrasting phrase

IT IS ELEVEN DAYS’ JOURNEY BY THE WAY OF SEIR UNTO KADESH-BARNEA. The meaning thereof is that Scripture informs us of the vastness of the wilderness, that from Horeb, which they left, to Kadesh-barnea is a journey of only eleven days, since by way of Mount Seir it is near. Kadesh-barnea is at the end of the wilderness at the border of the hill-country of the Amorites which is the inheritance of Israel. There are the lands of Sihon and Og where Moses explained the Torah in the valley over against Beth-peor. Afterwards Scripture says, they went by way of the mountain of the Amorites all that great and fearful wilderness, and, following that, it narrates that in Kadesh-barnea, which is at the boundary of their inheritance, they requested spies [to see the Land]. As a result, their journey was disrupted and they went [into the wilderness] toward the Red Sea — backward and not forward — until the completion of forty years. And because Israel was presently not in the wilderness, since they had already entered the land of Moab, earlier mentioned [i.e., the part which they took from Sihon and Og], Onkelos interpreted the expression in the wilderness, in the plain [These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan ‘in the wilderness, in the plain’] as being allusions to reproof [thus rendering: he reproved them “on account of that which they provoked Him in the wilderness, etc.”]. Moreover, why should Scripture mention all these places [in the wilderness, in the plain, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab] and specify signs and borders more than [the law requires] in selling a field! [Therefore these place-names were interpreted by Onkelos as being allusions to certain deeds about which Moses reproved them.] And the sense of the Scripture according to Onkelos’ opinion is: “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan; he spoke of [that which they did] in the wilderness, in the plain, and over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zahab, and the eleven days’ journey from Horeb,” because he mentioned to them all that they had done in these places. Afterwards Scripture states that there, beyond the previously mentioned Jordan, Moses wanted to explain the Torah after he reproved them, and he spoke and said, The Eternal our G-d spoke unto us in Horeb, saying. And so it is interpreted in the Sifre 1. according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah. Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskis, however, holds that they were actual places called by these names.

'אחד עשר יום מחורב וגו, who is wise enough to understand these words [that after 40 years the Israelites found themselves only 11 days from Mount Chorev? Ed] We must understand that the reason why Moses inserted this verse here is that in verse 19 we are told: “we set out from Chorev and traveled the great and terrible wilderness that you saw, along the road to the hill country of the Emorites and we came as far as Kadesh Barnea (which is close to the land of Israel and from where the spies were sent out.) As a result, we remained in this desert for forty years. This was due to our sin as recorded in Deuteronomy 2,1-7. Moses is simply contrasting the fact that the journey from the Sea of Reeds to the borders of the Holy Land was a distance of 11 days’ travel and had been covered in that amount of time [after deducting the encampments, especially the eleven and a half months at that mountain Ed.] whereas the rest of the journey, on account of the sin of the spies, took all these years.