And command thou the people,.... Give them a strict charge: saying, ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children or Esau: not through the midst of their country, for that the king of Edom would not admit of, but by or on the border of it: and they shall be afraid of you; lest such a numerous body of people as Israel were should seize upon their country, and dispossess them of it, they having been so long, wanderers in a wilderness near them: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore; that they did not take any advantage of their fears, and fall upon them, and do them mischief, or that they did not provoke them to battle and overcome them.