🔢WEB · Numbers 20:17
What does Numbers 20:17 mean?
"“Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink from the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway. We will not turn away to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border.”"
— Numbers 20:17 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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;
how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers.
When we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. Behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the edge of your border.
“Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink from the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway. We will not turn away to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border.”
Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against you.”
The children of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway; and if we drink your water, I and my livestock, then I will give its price. Only let me, without doing anything else, pass through on my feet.”
He said, “You shall not pass through.” Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand.
Explanation
Numbers 20:17 records the words Moses sent to the king of Edom as part of a diplomatic request. In plain language, Moses is asking for safe, respectful passage through Edomite territory as Israel travels toward the promised land. He promises that the Israelites will not trespass on cultivated land, will not raid vineyards for food, will not drink from wells without payment or permission, and will stick strictly to the established public road known as the "king's highway," neither straying to plunder nor to settle disputes along the way.
The context is important. By this point in Numbers, the Israelites have spent nearly forty years wandering in the wilderness after their unbelief at Kadesh Barnea, and the generation that left Egypt is dying off. Edom was the nation descended from Esau, Jacob's brother, so there was an ancient family relationship between Israel and Edom (see Numbers 20:14, "Thus says your brother Israel"). Moses is not asking for conquest or free resources; he is asking for a peaceful transit route through land Israel does not intend to take, honoring both the practical needs of travel and the historical kinship between the two peoples. Despite this reasonable and respectful request, the king of Edom refused and even mobilized his army to block Israel (Numbers 20:18-21), forcing Israel to go the long way around Edom's border.
Theologically, this verse illustrates Israel's posture of restraint and integrity even while under God's guidance toward the land He promised them.
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