Numbers 21

Numbers 21:1 When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

Numbers 21:2 And Israel pledged a solemn pledge to Yahveh and said, “If you will really give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”

Numbers 21:3 And Yahveh heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So, the name of the place was called Hormah.

Numbers 21:4 From Mount Hor, they advanced by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the throats became impatient on the way.

Numbers 21:5 And the people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the open country? Because there is no food and no water, and our souls loathe this worthless food.”

Numbers 21:6 Then Yahveh sent fiery snakes among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

Numbers 21:7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against Yahveh and you. Pray to Yahveh that he takes away the snakes from us.” So, Moses prayed for the people.

Numbers 21:8 And Yahveh said to Moses, “Make a fiery snake and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it will live.”

Numbers 21:9 So Moses made a bronze snake and set it on a pole. And if a snake bit anyone, he would look at the bronze snake and live.

Numbers 21:10 And the people of Israel advanced and camped in Oboth.

Numbers 21:11 And they advanced from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the open country that is opposite Moab, toward the sunrise.

Numbers 21:12 From there they advanced and camped in the Valley of Zered.

Numbers 21:13 From there, they advanced and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the open country that extends from the border of the Amorites, for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

Numbers 21:14 Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of Yahveh, “Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of the Arnon,

Numbers 21:15 and the slope of the valleys that extends to the seat of Ar and leans to the border of Moab.”

Numbers 21:16 And from there they continued to Beer; that is the well of which Yahveh said to Moses, “Gather the people together, so that I may give them water.”

Numbers 21:17 Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! — Sing to it! —

Numbers 21:18 the well that the princes made, that the nobles of the people dug, with the scepter and with their staffs.” From the open country, they went on to Mattanah,

Numbers 21:19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

Numbers 21:20 and from Bamoth to the valley lying in the region of Moab by the top of Pisgah that looks down on the desert.

Numbers 21:21 Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, and this is what he said,

Numbers 21:22 “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into a field or vineyard. We will not drink the water from a well. We will go by the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”

Numbers 21:23 But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the open country and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel.

Numbers 21:24 But Israel defeated him by the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites, because the border of the Ammonites was strong.

Numbers 21:25 And Israel took all these cities, and Israel took possession of all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and all its villages.

Numbers 21:26 Because Heshbon was the city of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

Numbers 21:27 Therefore the ballad singers say, “Come to Heshbon, let it be built; let the city of Sihon be established.

Numbers 21:28 Because fire came out from Heshbon, flame from the city of Sihon. It devoured Ar of Moab and swallowed the heights of the Arnon.

Numbers 21:29 Tragedy has come to you, O Moab! You have perished, O people of Chemosh! He has made his sons fugitives and his daughter’s captives to an Amorite king, Sihon.

Numbers 21:30 So we overthrew them; Heshbon, as far as Dibon, perished; and we laid waste as far as Nophah; fire spread as far as Medeba.”

Numbers 21:31 This is how Israel came to possess the land of the Amorites.

Numbers 21:32 And Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.

Numbers 21:33 Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan. And Og, the king of Bashan, came out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

Numbers 21:34 But Yahveh said to Moses, “Do not fear him, because I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you will do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”

Numbers 21:35 So they defeated him and his sons and all his people until he had no remaining survivor. And they possessed his land.

Numbers 21 quotes:

“With the beginning of chapter 21, a new chapter in the story of Israel’s wanderings begins. Up to this point, all the threats to God’s people’s forward progress have been internal (feuds, fights, despair) or, if external (as with Edom in Num. 20), fairly easily avoided. Indeed, the key reason for Israel’s circuitous wanderings, which take up ten verses at the heart of Numbers 21 (vv. 10-20), is its desire, at least while on the east bank of the river Jordan, to “pass through” this territory without a fight. But here, at this point in the journey, the resistance to this priestly nation’s transit in the world stiffens, and its swords are for the first time unsheathed—not against rebels and malcontents in its own ranks, but against a series of three enemies without. They are in order: the king of Arad (“the Canaanite,” 2:1), and the kings of the Amorites and of Bashan, King Sihon and — King Og.”

Boyce Richard Nelson. Leviticus and Numbers. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 194.

“This initial victory was won at the place of earlier defeat. The Lord was assuring them that, in coming days, things would be different. When the Lord gave the Canaanites over to them (3) it was an immense boost to their morale. This first conquest became the precursor of later triumphs (21:21-35). On the threshold of Canaan, the Lord was assuring them that, by his grace and in his power, life could be different.”

Brown Raymond. The Message of Numbers : Journey to the Promised Land. InterVarsity Press 2002. p. 183.

“God did not argue with them. He just acted. What He did was to send fiery serpents among them. When bitten by these serpents, many of the people died. This was all part of the judgment of God.”

Gutzke, Manford George. Plain Talk on Leviticus and Numbers. Zondervan Pub. House., 1981. p. 115.

“The people sought relief and confessed their sin to Moses, asking him to pray to remove the snakes. Moses prayed for them, and God answered by instructing Moses to make a snake and put it up on a pole. Whoever looked at the pole would recover from the snakebite. The Lord had them construct the bronze snake as “an emblem of healing rather than an object of veneration” (Harrison, 278). But later the Israelites, probably under the influence of Canaanite religion, worshiped and burned incense to this object. Still later, godly King Hezekiah destroyed the serpent (2 Kgs. 18:4).”

Martin, Glen, and Max E. Anders. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Broadman & Holman, 2002. p. 332.

“Here is the Gospel, preached in plainest language, by object-lesson again. The Israelites were bitten by the serpent, and were dying. God lifted up the remedy, upon which if they would but look, they might live. Just so, the old Serpent has bitten everyone of the human race and they are dying. God lifted up the remedy — Christ Jesus, upon whom if one but looks with the eye of faith he lives.

Saxe, Grace. Studies in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Grace Saxe, 1921. p. 45.