16 And from thence they went to Beer: that is the well whereof the LORD spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water.

17¶ Then Israel sang this song, "Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it:

18 The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah:

19 And from Mattanah to Nahaliel: and from Nahaliel to Bamoth:

20 And from Bamoth in the valley, that is in the country of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looketh toward 16Jeshimon. 21 ¶ And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

22 "Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: but we will go along by the king's high way, until we be past thy borders.

23 18 And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered. all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness: and he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

24 And "Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.

25 And Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the "villages thereof. 26 For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the 12 Heb. Ascend. 13 Or, answer. 14 Heb. field. 15 Or, the hill. 19 Josh. 12. 2. Psal. 135. 10, 11. Amos 2. 9. 20 Heb. daughters.

king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.

27 Wherefore they that speak in proverbs say, Come into Heshbon, let the city of Sihon be built and prepared:

28 For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon.

29 Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of "Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon king of the Amorites.

30 We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto Dibon, and we have laid them waste even unto Nophah, which reacheth unto Medeba.

31 Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.

32 And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, and drove out the Amorites that were there.

33 And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.

34 And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and 23thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

35 So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land.

Verse 1. "King Arad the Canaanite."-More properly "the king of Arad, a Canaanite." We understand this to mean, that when this king heard of their approach and their designs, he marched out to meet them, and took some of them captives, in consequence of which the Israelites vowed, that if the cities of this king were delivered into their hands, they would utterly destroy them. They thus devoted them to future destruction, and called the place Hormah, "the devoted place," to remind themselves of that bann and its obligation. We hence think that the account of their destruction here given is interpolated by a later hand to complete the history; for we find that effect was not given to this devotion till after the death of Joshua (Judges i. 16, 17), although the king of Arad had before this been defeated by that general (Josh. xii. 14). Indeed it seems obvious that a name describing its devoted condition would scarcely have been given to the place if it had at the time been utterly destroyed.

-"the way of the spies."-The word rendered "spies" is not considered by the ancient versions to bear that sense. The Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan_render it by "place," and read, "were on the way to those places;" while the Septuagint and Arabic, followed by Dr. Boothroyd, retain the original word as a proper name, and read, " by the way of Atharim."

4. " They journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea."-Down the Wady-el-Araba, towards the head of the Gulf of Akaba. This Wady-el-Araba is undoubtedly the "way of the Red sea" of the text; and the discouragement which the Israelites felt "because of the way" may be accounted for no less by the naturally depressing influence of the obligation of going so far about to their destination, which they had hoped to reach by a shorter and more pleasant route, than by the naturally cheerless aspect of the country which they were traversing. The Wady-el-Araba, although a natural road to the countries north and north-west of the Red Sea, is yet as sterile as the desert, although the small bushy tufts, which grow here and there in the sand, retain for some time a little of the verdure which they receive during the rainy season. It is indeed in some respects worse than the common desert, being, to an extent beyond the latitude of Mount Hor, an expanse of shifting sand, of which the surface is broken by innumerable undulations and low hills. This sand appears to have been brought from the shores of the Red Sea by the southerly winds. The few travellers who have visited this region reiterate the complaints of the Israelites as to the scarcity of water in this district. Indeed when we consider the general want of water in the Arabian deserts, and the vast quantity which the Hebrew host must

have required, there is less cause to wonder at their frequent complaints on the subject than that they were enabled, for so many years, to subsist in a collective body in regions thus consumed with drought. It is our firm conviction that they must utterly have perished long before but for the miraculous supplies which, on occasions of emergency, were granted to them.

6. "Fiery serpents.”—It is disputed whether the epithet ', seraphim, or fiery, is given to these serpents on account of their brilliant appearance, or because of the burning agony occasioned by their bites or stings. The latter seems the most probable opinion, and appears to be sanctioned by the Septuagint, which renders opus Tous JavaTourras deadly serpents;" and the Arabic version of the Pentateuch has "serpents of burning bites." In another place (Deut. viii. 15), the region through which the Israelites wandered is thus described, probably with a particular reference to this part: "The great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water." This description answers, to this day, with remarkable precision to these desert regions, and particularly to that part, about the head of the gulf of Akaba, where the Israelites now were. Scorpions abound in all the desert, and are particularly common here, and they inflict a wound scarcely less burning than the serpents of the same region. As to the serpents, both Burckhardt and Laborde bear witness to the extraordinary numbers which are found about the head of the gulf; but it is to be regretted that neither of these travellers speaks particularly of the species. Burckhardt, who at the time of making this observation did himself not see much of the head of the gulf, and was only on the western coast, nearly opposite the spot where the Israelites appear to have been thus visited, says:―" Ayd told me that serpents are very common in these parts; that the fishermen were much afraid of them, and extinguished their fires in the evening before they went to sleep, because the light was known to attract them. As serpents then are so numerous on this side, they are probably not deficient towards the head of the gulf on its opposite shore, where it appears that the Israelites passed when they journeyed from Mount Hor, by the way of the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom, and when the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. (Tour in the Peninsula of Sinai,' p. 499.) To these testimonies we may add that of Herodotus, who speaks of the immense number of serpents which are found in Arabia. It is true that he describes them as "winged" and migratory, and his account is mixed with much hearsay fable; but thus much we may certainly gather, that the parts of Arabia near Egypt had a dreadful renown for the number and venom of their serpents. After speaking of the serpents worshipped at Thebes in Egypt, (apparently the cerastes,) he proceeds abruptly to speak of the "winged" serpents of Arabia. He says there was a district of Arabia, nearly opposite to Butos, which he visited for the sake of obtaining information concerning these serpents. He does not tell us that he saw any "winged" serpents there; but he does say that he beheld the skeletons of an immense multitude of serpents in heaps of various sizes. The district where he found these was, as described by him, in a mountain defile opening upon an extensive plain which bordered upon the plain of Egypt. (Euterpe, lxxv.) Returning to the same subject in a subsequent page (Thalia, cviii.), he observes, that Arabia would not be habitable if the serpents multiplied so fast as their nature admits; but that their numbers were checked by a strange propensity among these reptiles to destroy each other. It is observable that commentators and old painters usually represent the serpents which afflicted the Israelites as winged, in conformity with the account of Herodotus. There is nothing to countenance this idea in the Pentateuch; but the prophet Isaiah (ch. xiv. 19, and xxx. 6), without any allusion to the present transactions, mentions the seraph, serpent, and employs the additional epithet, meopheph, translated "flying," and the whole, " fiery flying serpents," and it is apprehended that the same must be understood here also. But on this subject see the note on Isa. xiv. 9. It would thus appear that no creation of serpents for this occasion was required, but that they were collected perhaps in extraordinary numbers, and endued probably with a stronger propensity than usual to assault all persons who fell in their way, until it pleased God, through an agency which would have been wholly inoperative but through Him, to heal those who had been wounded and were dying of their wounds.

9. "A serpent of brass."―The power of God alone could have given efficacy to the mode of cure here described. The brazen serpent was preserved as a memorial of this miracle till the time of Hezekiah, when, in consequence of its having become an object of idolatrous reverence to the Israelites, it was destroyed. (See the note on 2 Kings xviii. 4.) It is thought by some writers, not perhaps without reason, that the worship of Esculapius, the god of physic, under the form of a serpent, was derived from some tradition concerning the animal the sight of which made the Hebrews whole. "Put it upon a pole."-The word rendered pole (D), nais) is often used in the Prophets and Psalms in the sense of an ensign or banner, used for assembling the people, particularly, it would seem, from its being erected on the hills for that purpose on the invasion of an enemy or after a defeat. It is also used to denote the ensign of a ship. Although the word is different from that employed in ch. ii. to denote the great standards, degel), and also from that which describes the standards of the individual tribes (N, aoth), still it is a remarkable fact that a pole, upon which an animal figure was fixed, should be described by the same general word which in other places denotes an ensign. See the note on standards in Num. ii.

10. "The children of Israel set forward.”—On their arrival somewhere near the head of the Elanitic gulf, the Hebrew host must have turned to the east. They doubtless took the first practicable opening which occurred for this purpose south of the Ghoeyr, through which they seem to have desired in the first instance to pass. Such an opening occurs in the ridge of Mount Seir, a little to the south of Ezion-geber, where Burckhardt remarked from the opposite coast that the mountains are very much lower than more to the northward. In following this direction they of course came into the great elevated plains which are traversed by the Syrian pilgrims in their route to Mecca, and which we have already described in the note to Gen. xxxvi. 9. After proceeding for an undetermined period in an easterly direction, the divine command came: "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward." (Deut. ii. 3.) In telling them thus to pass through or along the comparatively weak and exposed eastern frontier of the Edomites, whose king had repelled them from his strong and inaccessible western border, the Lord assured the Israelites that the Edomites would now be afraid of them; but they were not to avail themselves of the alarm which that kindred people would feel in seeing the Hebrews on their weak frontier, nor make any attempt to revenge the insult with which they had been treated; as the Lord had given to the eldest son of Isaac Mount Seir for a possession, in which his descendants were not to be disturbed. Therefore they were to march along peaceably, adhering, in this passage against the consent of the Edomites, to the very same terms which they had purposed to observe if that consent had been granted. (See Deut. ii. 1-8, and compare with Num. xx. 14-21.) They were to purchase their "meat and water for money," in the same manner as the great pilgrim caravan is at the present day supplied by the people of the same mountains, who meet the pilgrims in the Hadj route, and many of whom at this season make a profit sufficient to support them during the rest of the year. This treatment of the king of Edom is remarkably contrasted with that of

Sihon, king of the Amorites, in the sequel of this chapter, in very nearly similar circumstances. But the latter monarch was not protected by any affinity to the seed of Israel. Of the stations mentioned in this chapter and in ch. xxxiii. 43, which are Zalmonah, Punon, Oboth, and Ije-Abarim on the border of Moab, we know nothing precisely, and therefore the map-makers conveniently place them at about equal distances from one another. Of Punon, however, it may be observed, that its name is nearly identical with that of Phanon or Phynon, an ancient town to which Eusebius assigns a position answering, as nearly as may be, to that of the modern Tafyle (N. lat. 30° 48', E. long. 35° 53′,) which name, Burckhardt says, has some resemblance to the other. The resemblance is certainly very faint. This town of Tafyle, which is surrounded by fruit trees, contains about six hundred houses, and is situated in a very pleasant and fertile neighbourhood, which might well induce the Israelites to select it for a resting place. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in cultivation, the produce of which they dispose of advantageously to the great pilgrim caravan. were Punon, probably its ancient inhabitants did the same to the Israelites.

12. "Valley of Zared."-See the note on Deut. ii. 13.

If this

13. "Arnon.”—This river, which is frequently mentioned in Scripture, is undoubtedly that which is at present known under the name of Modjeb, and which now divides the province of Belka from that of Kerek, as it formerly divided the kingdoms of the Moabites and Canaanites. The principal source of this stream is at a short distance north-east from Katrane, a station of the Syrian Hadj, or pilgrim caravan. Katrane is in N. lat. 31° 8', and E. long. 36° 20′; from this place the direction of about half its course is N.N.W., after which it inclines W. by N. to the Dead Sea, into which it empties itself a few miles below the N.E. extremity of that great lake, after a course of about fifty miles. The river flows through a rocky bed, and is almost or quite dried up in summer, like most of the other small rivers of this region; but even then its bed bears evident marks of its copiousness and impetuosity during the rainy season, the shattered fragments of large pieces of rock, detached from the banks nearest the river, and carried away by the torrent, being deposited at a considerable height above the summer channel of the stream. Burckhardt, whose observations were made about twenty miles from the estuary of the river, and certainly at no great distance from the point where the Hebrew host first saw it, with the intense delight which their long sojourn in the thirsty desert must have inspired, says: "The view which the Modjeb (here) presents is very striking: from the bottom, where the river runs through a narrow stripe of verdant level about forty yards across, the steep and barren banks arise to a great height, covered with immense blocks of stone which have rolled down from the upper strata, so that, when viewed from above, the valley looks like a deep chasm, formed by some tremendous convulsion of the earth, into which there seems no possibility of descending to the bottom; the distance from the edge of one precipice to that of the opposite one is about two miles in a straight line." (Travels in Syria,' p. 372). He adds, that he was thirty-five minutes in descending to the valley of the river, and that in all his travels he never felt such suffocating heat as he experienced there, from the concentrated rays of the sun, and their reflection from the rocks. This was in July. The common road crosses the valley at this place, where there are the remains of a bridge, of which one arch only now remains. Burckhardt calls it modern, but Dr. Macmichael says it is ancient Roman; and he is probably right, as a Roman causeway, about fifteen feet broad, and which was well paved, though at present in a bad state, begins here, and runs all the way up the mountain, and from thence as far as Rabbah. The bridge is not now of any use. It took Burckhardt an hour and three quarters in ascending, from the bridge, the opposite or southern declivity of the mountains cut by the valley of the Arnon ̧ 14. "The book of the wars of the LORD."-What book this was has been largely debated by Biblical critics, whose opinions are thus summed up by the Rev. T. H. Horne. "Aben-Ezra, Hottinger, and others, are of opinion that it refers to this book of the Pentateuch, because in it are related various battles of the Israelites with the Amalekites. Hezelius, and after him Michaelis, think it was an Amoritish writing, containing triumphal songs in honour of the victories obtained by Sihon, king of the Amorites, from which Moses cited the words that immediately follow. Fonseca and others refer it to the book of Judges. Le Clerc understands it of the wars of the Israelites who fought under the direction of Jehovah, and instead of book, he translates it, with most of the Jewish doctors, narration: and proposes to render the verse thus:- Wherefore, in the narration of the wars of the Lord, there is (or shall be) mention of what he did in the Red Sea, and in the brooks of Arnon.' Lastly, Dr. Lightfoot considers this book to have been some book of remembrances and directions written by Moses for Joshua's private instruction, for the prosecution of the wars after his decease. (See Exod. xvii. 14-16.)" Mr. Horne thinks that this opinion is the most simple, and is, in all probability, the true one. We must confess however that, as the quotation in this chapter is poetical, and as it does not seem likely that Moses would have written in poetry private military instructions, we incline to the opinion that the book consisted of poetical compositions celebrating particular events, and from which so much is here introduced as seemed proper for the occasion.

15. "The stream of the brooks."-This "stream of the brooks," near which Ar, the capital of Moab (see note to Deut. ii. 9), was built, is probably that now called Beni-Hamad, which, after a course of about eighteen miles, nearly due west, falls into the Dead Sea about twenty-five miles south of the estuary of the Arnon, or in N. lat. 31° 217. The country for many miles south and north of this part consists of fine elevated plains, richly cultivated in many parts, and almost everywhere susceptible of cultivation. On entering this country the Israelites may fairly be considered to have quitted permanently the desert region to which they had so long been accustomed. The ruins of numerous towns continue to indicate that it was at a former period no less populous than fertile.

20. "Pisgah."-See the note on Deut. xxxii. 49.

26. "Heshbon."-This name is still preserved in the site of a ruined town, built upon a hill, about sixteen miles north of the Arnon (N. lat. 31° 53', E. long. 36° 10′). The town must have been large, and among its ruins are found the remains of some edifices built with small stones: a few broken columns are still standing; and there are a number of deep wells cut in the rocks, and also a large reservoir of water for the summer supply of the inhabitants. This place is often mentioned in Scripture, and is celebrated in the Canticles (vii. 4) for its "fish-pools." Dr. Macmichael and his party went to look for these pools; they found only one, which is described as extremely insignificant. This was perhaps what Burckhardt mentions as a reservoir. The Doctor saw many bones and human sculls in the cisterns among the ruins, which he describes as of small extent.

30. "Dibon."-This name is still preserved in a ruined town called Diban, about three miles north of the Arnon, near the road mentioned, under verse 13, as that taken by Burckhardt and other travellers. This, with other towns of this district, was originally assigned to the tribe of Gad (ch. xxxii. 3, 33, 34), but we afterwards find it in the possession of Reuben (Josh. xiii. 17).

"Medeba.”—This name is preserved in that of "Madeba," applied to a large ruined town about six miles south-east from Hesbon. In Isaiah xv. 2, its name is connected with that of Mount Nebo:-" Moab shall howl over Nebo and

over Medeba." By which we are probably to understand that this was, in the time of the prophet, the principal town of this rich district. "Madeba" was built upon a round hill, and is now most completely ruined. There are many remains of the walls of private houses, constructed with blocks of silex; but not a single edifice is standing. On the west side of the town may be seen the remains of a temple, built with large stones, and apparently of great antiquity. A part of its eastern wall remains; and at the entrance to one of the courts stand two Doric columns, which have the peculiarity of being thicker in the centre than at either extremity: a circumstance which Burckhardt, to whom Scripture geography owes the discovery of this site, never elsewhere observed in Syria. There is no spring or river near this town; but the large tank or reservoir of hewn stone still remains, which appears to have secured the inhabitants a supply of water. 33. "Bashan....Edrei."-See the note to Josh. xii. 4.

pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.

2 ¶ And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. 3 And Moab was sore afraid of the

AND the children of Israel set forward, and people, because they were many: and Moab

was distressed because of the children of 'Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from Israel. coming unto me:

8 Heb. I shall prevail in fighting against him.
2 Pet. 2. 16. Jude 11.