Numbers 21:10-20

An Itinerary. This continues Numbers 21:4 (and they journeyed from Mount Hor), but the immediate place of departure in Numbers 21:10 is omitted. In Numbers 33:42 f. two stations are inserted between Hor and Oboth.

Numbers 21:10 f. Oboth. Iye-abarim: both unknown. before Moab: i.e. E. of Moab.

Numbers 21:12. the valley of Zered: probably the Wâ dy el Ahsa at the SE. angle of the Dead Sea.

Numbers 21:13. the other side of Arnon: it is difficult to decide whether this means N. of the river from the point of view of those on the march, or S. of the river regarded from the standpoint of later times. The Arnon (p. 32) is the modern Wâ dy el Mojib. cometh out of: i.e. stretches away from.

Numbers 21:14. the book of the wars of the Lord: probably a collection of songs relating to the wars of Israel, the interests and undertakings of a nation and of its national God being regarded as the same. Israel's battles were Yahweh's battles (1 Samuel 18:17; 1 Samuel 25:28), and Israel's enemies were Yahweh's enemies (1 Samuel 30:26). Vaheb in Suphah: unknown. the valleys: The gorge of the Arnon, 13 miles from its mouth, divides into two branches, and each of these into other two.

Numbers 21:15. the dwelling of Ar: better, the site of Ar, an unknown locality but somewhere on the upper Arnon.

Numbers 21:16. Beer: perhaps the Beer-elim of Isaiah 15:8.

Numbers 21:17 f. The song here quoted really refers not to a well made to flow by miraculous means (as Numbers 21:16 suggests, cf. Numbers 20:2; Exodus 17:1), but to one dug by labourers working under the authority of their rulers, who, with their sceptres, superintended the digging. from the wilderness: read (LXX) from Beer. they journeyed to Mattanah: Mattanah is unknown. The words journeyed to are not in the Heb.; and the name Mattanah means lit. a gift. Accordingly the Targum of Onkelos renders, it was given to them in the wilderness; whilst a later Targum explains that the well, which had been hidden, was restored to them through the merits of Miriam.

Numbers 21:19. Nahaliel: an unknown locality. The name means the torrent-valley of God; and the Targum of Onkelos, taking this, like the preceding name Mattanah, literally, paraphrases and from (the time) that it was given to them, it (i.e. the well) descended with them to the rivers. This is the source of the curious legend (referred to by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:4 *) of a rock that accompanied the Israelites in their journeys and supplied them with water (see Thackeray, The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 205). Bamoth: perhaps the Bamoth-baal of Numbers 22:41 mg.

Numbers 21:20. the valley: probably the Wâ dy - Ayû n Mû sâ. Pisgah: one of the spurs jutting out from the table-land overlooking the barren shore of the Jordan (near its mouth), a waste which is here (mg.) called the Jeshî mon (p. 31).