Joshua 12:1-2

These are the kings of the land This summary account of Israel's conquests comes in here not only as a conclusion of the history of the wars of Canaan, that we might at one view see what they had gotten; but as a preface to the history of the dividing of Canaan, that all those territories might be placed together before the reader's view, which they were now to make the distribution of. All the plain on the east That is, on the east of Jordan, called the plain, Deuteronomy 1:1. From the middle of the river Ar, which was no part of Sihon's dominions, but belonged to the Moabites, (Deuteronomy 2:9,) appears to have been situated in the middle of the river Arnon, (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:16,) and therefore the middle of the river is properly here mentioned as the bound of Sihon's dominion on that side. But it is not unusual even among us for a river to be divided between two lords, and for their territories or jurisdictions to meet in the middle of the river. Some, however, prefer rendering תוךְ הנחל, tock hannachal, between the river; namely, that he reigned over some territory which was situated between different streams of that river. Half Gilead Hebrew, And the half Gilead; that is, half the country of Gilead, over which Sihon's dominion, which began at Arnon, extended, ending at Jabbok, beyond which river was the other half of Gilead, which belonged to Og.