1. In the mountains is a very general term, but in this case, it probably refers to what later became known as the Judean highlands.
2. The western foothills is lit., the Shephelah, the range of chalky hills between the Judean highlands and the Philistine coast.
3. J. A. Thompson (Deuteronomy, 94) raises the question whether the Trans-Jordan land "is in fact part of the promised land." The absence of Trans-Jordan in the list is natural given the assumption that Israel's conquest would be launched from the west via Kadesh Barnea. Though the Trans-Jordan tribes would not eventually play as active a role in the life of the nation as the Cis-Jordan tribes, Deuteronomy is insistent that the conquered Trans-Jordan is no less part and parcel of Israel's inheritance and gift from Yahweh. We will have more to say about this in our comments on 2:24-3:29 and 4:41-49.
4. R. North' dismissal of the inclusion of the Lebanon as well as the Euphrates in the delineation of the land in Jos.1:4 as "a vague rhetorical exaggeration" ("The Hivites," Biblica 54 (1973): 43-62) thus misses the point of such delineations here in Deuteronomy and elsewhere in the conquest narratives. This criticism may, similarly, be made against E. H. Merrill (Deuteronomy, 68), who thinks the fact that this territory was never, in its entirety, brought under Israelite control, does not vitiate the promise, for its eschatological fulfilment lies yet ahead. The similarly contracted boundaries of the land in Ezekiel's restoration vision (Eze.47:13ff.), however, would seem to vitiate Merrill's assertion. On the place of imagination in the book of Deuteronomy, though taking the discussion in a different direction, see the important work by W. Bruggemann, "Imagination as a Mode of Fidelity," in Understanding the Word: Essays in Honor of Bernhard W. Anderson, ed. by J. T. Butler, E. W. Conrad, & B. C. Ollenburger (JSOTS 37; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), 13-36.
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