In this chapter Moses recounts, for a change, a number of times Israel obeyed. They began by turning away from the promised land and traveling “around the hill country of Seir” (2:1). Then they turned north (2:2). Israel was not to provoke the descendants of Esau to war, for God had already given this hill country to Edom (2:5); instead, Israel was to purchase food and water from them for silver (2:6). God had already so blessed Israel that they “lacked nothing” (2:7 KJV, RSV). Likewise, Israel was not to harass Moab (2:9), for just as God had dispossessed the Horites (also called Hurrians) of their land and had given it to Edom (2:12), so he had driven the Emites out of the other land he ha…