(16) When Israel came up from Egypt.--Compare with this narrative Numbers 20, 21.

Walked through the wilderness.--In the second year of the wanderings (Deuteronomy 1:19).

Unto the Red sea.--Numbers 14:25. The name for this sea in the Old Testament is Yam sooph, "the sea of weeds." They reached Kadesh Barnea from Ezion Geber ("the Giant's backbone"), in the Gulf of Akaba (Numbers 33:36).

To Kadesh.--Numbers 20:1; Numbers 33:16.

Verse 16. - When Israel came up, etc. In this and the following verses there is a distinct reference to the history in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and in some instances verbal quotations. Thus in this verse the words below which are put in italics are found in Numbers 13:26; Numbers 14:25: Israel... walked through the wilderness unto the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh.

11:12-28 One instance of the honour and respect we owe to God, as our God, is, rightly to employ what he gives us to possess. Receive it from him, use it for him, and part with it when he calls for it. The whole of this message shows that Jephthah was well acquainted with the books of Moses. His argument was clear, and his demand reasonable. Those who possess the most courageous faith, will be the most disposed for peace, and the readiest to make advances to obtain; but rapacity and ambition often cloak their designs under a plea of equity, and render peaceful endeavours of no avail.But when Israel came up from Egypt,.... In order to go to the land of Canaan, which was higher than the land of Egypt, which lay low (k):

and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea; which is to be understood not of their walking to it; when they first came out of Egypt, they indeed then came to the edge of the wilderness of Etham, and so to the Red sea, and walked through it as on dry land, and came into the wilderness of Shur, Sin, and Sinai; and after their departure from Mount Sinai they came into the wilderness of Paran, in which they were thirty eight years; and this is the wilderness meant they walked through, and came to Eziongaber, on the shore of the Red sea, Numbers 33:35.

and came to Kadesh; not Kadeshbarnea, from whence the spies were sent, but Kadesh on the borders of Edom, from whence messengers were sent to the king of it, as follows.

(k) Theocrit. Idyll. 17. ver. 79.