2 It is eleven days' (journey) from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
For Kadesh see Numbers 13:26 note; and for Horeb see Exodus 3:1.
There are eleven days' journey - The Israelites were eleven days in going from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, where they were near the verge of the promised land; after which they were thirty-eight years wandering up and down in the vicinity of this place, not being permitted, because of their rebellions, to enter into the promised rest, though they were the whole of that time within a few miles of the land of Canaan!
([There are] eleven days' [journey] from (c) Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)
(c) In Horeb, or Sinai, forty years before the law was given: but because all that were then of age and judgment were now dead, Moses repeats the same to the youth who either then were not born, or had not judgment.
There are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir, to Kadeshbarnea. Not that the Israelites came thither in eleven days from Horeb, for they stayed by the way at Kibrothhattaavah, a whole month at least, and seven days at Hazeroth; but the sense is, that this was the computed distance between the two places; it was what was reckoned a man might walk in eleven days; and if we reckon a day's journey twenty miles, of which See Gill on Jonah 3:3, the distance must be two hundred and twenty miles. But Dr. Shaw (e) allows but ten miles for a day's journey, and then it was no more than one hundred and ten, and indeed a camp cannot be thought to move faster; but not the day's journey of a camp, but of a man, seems to be intended, who may very well walk twenty miles a day for eleven days running; but it seems more strange that another learned traveller (f) should place Kadeshbarnea at eight hours, or ninety miles distance only from Mount Sinai. Moses computes not the time that elapsed between those two places, including their stations, but only the time of travelling; and yet Jarchi says, though it was eleven days' journey according to common computation, the Israelites performed it in three days; for he observes that they set out from Horeb on the twentieth of Ijar, and on the twenty ninth of Sivan the spies were sent out from Kadeshbarnea; and if you take from hence the whole month they were at one place, and the seven days at another, there will be but three days left for them to travel in. And he adds, that the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, pushed them forward, to hasten their going into the land; but they corrupting themselves, he turned them about Mount Seir forty years. It is not easy to say for what reason these words are expressed, unless it be to show in how short a time the Israelites might have been in the land of Canaan, in a few days' journey from Horeb, had it not been for their murmurings and unbelief, for which they were turned into the wilderness again, and travelled about for the space of thirty eight years afterwards. Aben Ezra is of opinion, that the eleven days, for the word "journey" is not in the text, are to be connected with the preceding words; and that the sense is, that Moses spake these words in the above places, in the eleven days they went from Horeb to Kadesh.
(e) De loc. Hebrews. fol. 92. I. (f) Pococke's Description of the East, vol. 1. p. 157.
There are eleven days' journey from Horeb--Distances are computed in the East still by the hours or days occupiesd by the journey. A day's journey on foot is about twenty miles--on camels, at the rate of three miles an hour, thirty miles--and by caravans, about twenty-five miles. But the Israelites, with children and flocks, would move at a slow rate. The length of the Ghor from Ezion-geber to Kadesh is a hundred miles. The days here mentioned were not necessarily successive days [ROBINSON], for the journey can be made in a much shorter period. But this mention of the time was made to show that the great number of years spent in travelling from Horeb to the plain of Moab was not owing to the length of the way, but to a very different cause; namely, banishment for their apostasy and frequent rebellions.
mount Seir--the mountainous country of Edom.
In Deuteronomy 1:2 also the retrospective glance at the guidance through the desert is unmistakeable. "Eleven days is the way from Horeb to the mountains of Seir as far as Kadesh-Barnea." With these words, which were unquestionably intended to be something more than a geographical notice of the distance of Horeb from Kadesh-barnea, Moses reminded the people that they had completed the journey from Horeb, the scene of the establishment of the covenant, to Kadesh, the border of the promised land, in eleven days, that he might lead them to lay to heart the events which took place at Kadesh itself. The "way of the mountains of Seir" is not the way along the side of these mountains, i.e., the way through the Arabah, which is bounded by the mountains of Seir on the east, but the way which leads to the mountains of Seir, just as in Deuteronomy 2:1 the way of the Red Sea is the way that leads to this sea. From these words, therefore, it by no means follows that Kadesh-Barnea is to be sought for in the Arabah, and that Israel passed through the Arabah from Horeb to Kadesh. According to Deuteronomy 1:19, they departed from Horeb, went through the great and terrible wilderness by the way to the mountains of the Amorites, and came to Kadesh-barnea. Hence the way to the mountains of the Amorites, i.e., the southern part of what were afterwards the mountains of Judah (see at Numbers 13:17), is the same as the way to the mountains of Seir; consequently the Seir referred to here is not the range on the eastern side of the Arabah, but Seir by Hormah (Deuteronomy 1:44), i.e., the border plateau by Wady Murreh, opposite to the mountains of the Amorites (Joshua 11:17; Joshua 12:7 : see at Numbers 34:3).
There are eleven days journey - This is added to shew that the reason why the Israelites, in so many years were advanced no farther from Horeb, than to these plains, was not the distance of the places but because of their rebellions. Kadesh - barnea - Which was not far from the borders of Canaan.
*More commentary available at chapter level.