Deuteronomy 2:36

From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon The Naḥal "Arnon= Wâdy Môjeb, see above Deuteronomy 2:24. Edge, Heb. lip. -Arô-eris frequently given in the O.T. as a S. limit: e.g. of the territory taken by Israel from Sîḥôn (here, and Deuteronomy 3:12; Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2; Joshua 13:9; Joshua 13:16); of the kingdom of Israel (2 Samuel 24:5 emended after LXX; 2 Kings 10:33). -I built," says Mesha (Moabite Stone, 27), --Arô-er and made the high-way by the "Arnon." Jeremiah 48:19 connects -Arô-er with a high-road. Eusebius describes it as above "Arnon, -on the eyebrow of the hill." To-day the Khirbet -Arâ-er, ruins of a walled town on the N. edge of the W. Môjeb, here nearly 2000 feet deep, with an ancient zig-zag road down the precipitous slopes to the bed of the Wâdy (Tristram, Moab, 125 ff.; Musil, Moab, 331, with plan and views). It lies nearly 2 miles E. of the Roman road, the present high road across "Arnon, and must not be confounded with the ruins called -Aḳraba close to the latter (cp. Brünnow, Provincia Arabia, i. 31; and the present writer, PEFQ, 1905, 41); an error into which several travellers have fallen.

the city that is in the valley The valleyor naḥal is, of course, the "Arnon or Wâdy Môjeb, the S. frontier of Sîḥôn's kingdom. The site of the unnamed city is uncertain. Its frequent association with -Arô-er as on a S. frontier (e.g. here, Joshua 13:9; Joshua 13:16; 2 Samuel 24:5) may imply that it lay close under -Arô-er on the stream; where to-day ruins stand with the name Khreibet -Ajam 1 [113]; in which case the cityhas been added to -Arô-er in order to define the exact border as the stream, and its namelessness is explicable by its having been a mere suburb or the toll-town of -Arô-er. Or else, since -Arô-er lay towards the W. end of the S. frontier of Sîḥôn's kingdom formed by the "Arnon, the city in the valleylay further up the "Arnon and so defined the E. extremity of the S. border. Musil suggests Medeyyneh on the upper stretch of "Arnon, now the W. Sa-ideh or Sa-îdeh (Moab, 328 ff.). It lies on a projection of the plateau into the Wâdy, and might well be described as the city in, or in the midst of, the naḥal. This is the same site as Musil proposes for -Ar or -Ir of Mo-ab, also given as a limit (see on Deuteronomy 2:18); the identification of which had already been made on Biblical data alone (Dillm. in loco).

[113] There are other ruins a little further E. up the stream at its confluence with that from the S. and these Grove (Smith's D.B. 1st ed.) takes as the city in question.

even unto Gilead E, Numbers 21:24, defines more exactly unto the Jabboḳ, the next great natural frontier N. of Arnon. Gile-ad lay on both sides of Jabboḳ, which divided it into halves.

too high for us The Heb. phrase is found in prose only here, and elsewhere in the O.T. only in Job 5:11. Further see Deuteronomy 1:28.

before us Sam. LXX: into our hands.