Ulangan 1:23

1:23 I thought this was a good idea, ¹  so I sent ²  twelve men from among you, one from each tribe.

Ulangan 1:2

1:2 Now it is ordinarily an eleven-day journey ³  from Horeb ⁴  to Kadesh Barnea ⁵  by way of Mount Seir. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 17:4

17:4 Then a champion ⁷  came out from the camp of the Philistines. His name was Goliath; he was from Gath. He was close to seven feet tall. ⁸ 

[1:23]  ¹ tn Heb “the thing was good in my eyes.”

[1:23]  ² tn Or “selected” (so NIV, NRSV, TEV); Heb “took.”

[1:2]  ³ sn An eleven-day journey was about 140 mi (233 km).

[1:2]  ⁴ sn Horeb is another name for Sinai. “Horeb” occurs 9 times in the Book of Deuteronomy and “Sinai” only once (33:2). “Sinai” occurs 13 times in the Book of Exodus and “Horeb” only 3 times.

[1:2]  ⁵ sn Kadesh Barnea. Possibly this refers to àAin Qudeis, about 50 mi (80 km) southwest of Beer Sheba, but more likely to àAin Qudeirat, 5 mi (8 km) NW of àAin Qudeis. See R. Cohen, “Did I Excavate Kadesh-Barnea?” BAR 7 (1981): 20-33.

[1:2]  ⁶ sn Mount Seir is synonymous with Edom. “By way of Mount Seir” refers to the route from Horeb that ended up in Edom Cf. CEV “by way of the Mount Seir Road”; TEV “by way of the hill country of Edom.”

[17:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the man of the space between the two [armies].” See v. 23.

[17:4]  ⁸ tc Heb “his height was six cubits and a span” (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV). A cubit was approximately eighteen inches, a span nine inches. So, according to the Hebrew tradition, Goliath was about nine feet, nine inches tall (cf. NIV, CEV, NLT “over nine feet”; NCV “nine feet, four inches”; TEV “nearly 3 metres”). However, some Greek witnesses, Josephus, and a manuscript of 1 Samuel from Qumran read “four cubits and a span” here, that is, about six feet, nine inches (cf. NAB “six and a half feet”). This seems more reasonable; it is likely that Goliath’s height was exaggerated as the story was retold. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 286, 291.