The Negeb: the desert region south of Judah (see 1.7). It will be good to begin a new sentence here with, for example, “The LORD showed Moses the land called the Negeb that lay to the south of Judah.” Some traditions transliterate the name as “the Negev.”

The Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho … as far as Zoar: see Good News Translation for the translation of this region. This is a reference to the basin of the Dead Sea; Jericho was in the northwest, and Zoar in the southeast, south of the Dead Sea.

The city of palm trees: a familiar description of Jericho (see Judges 1.16; 3.13).

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .