Numbers 21:3

He called the name of the place - Render it as: “the name of the place was called.” The transitive verb here is, by a common Hebrew idiom, equivalent to an impersonal one.

Hormah - i. e. “Ban.” See Numbers 14:45 and note. In Judges 1:17, we read that the men of Judah and Simeon “slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it;” and further, that “the name of the city was called Hormah.” But it does not follow that the name “Hormah” was first bestowed in consequence of the destruction of the place in the time of the Judges, and that in Numbers its occurrence is a sign of a post-Mosaic date of composition. The text here informs us that this aggression of the king of Arad was repelled, and avenged by the capture and sack of his cities; and that the Israelites “banned” them (compare Leviticus 27:28). But it was not the plan of the Israelites in the time of Moses to remain in this district. They therefore marched away southeastward; and no doubt for the time the Canaanites resumed possession, and restored the ancient name (Zephath). But Joshua again conquered the king of this district, and finally in the time of the early Judges the ban of Moses and his contemporaries was fully executed. We have therefore in the passage before us the history of the actual origin of the name “Hormah.”