Numbers 21:1

CHAPTER XXI

Arad, a king of the Canaanites, attacks Israel, and makes same

prisoners, 1.

They devote him and his people to destruction, 2;

which they afterwards accomplished, 3.

They journey from Hor, and are greatly discouraged, 4.

They murmur against God and Moses, and loathe the manna, 5.

The Lord sends fiery serpents among them, 6.

They repent, and beg Moses to intercede for them, 7.

The Lord directs him to make a brazen serpent, and set it on a

pole, that the people might look on it and be healed, 8.

Moses does so, and the people who beheld the brazen serpent

lived, 9.

They journey to Oboth, Ije-abarim, Zared, and Arnon, 10-13.

A quotation from the book of the wars of the Lord, 14, 15.

From Arnon they came to Beer, 16.

Their song of triumph, 17-20.

Moses sends messengers to the Amorites for permission to pass

through their land, 21, 22.

Sihon their king refuses, attacks Israel, is defeated, and all

his cities destroyed, 23-26.

The poetic proverbs made on the occasion, 27-30.

Israel possesses the land of the Amorites, 31, 32.

They are attacked by Og king of Bashan, 33.

They defeat him, destroy his troops and family, and possess his

land, 34, 35.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXI

Verse Numbers 21:1. The way of the spies] אתרים atharim. Some think that this signifies the way that the spies took when they went to search the land. But this is impossible, as Dr. Kennicott justly remarks, because Israel had now marched from Meribah-Kadesh to Mount Hor, beyond Ezion-Gaber, and were turning round Edom to the south-east; and therefore the word is to be understood here as the name of a place.