For Teaching

Numbers 21: What the Passage Says

110 claims across 35 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Numbers 21 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel makes a vow and defeats the Canaanite king of Arad, then complains about the food and water on the long detour around Edom; the LORD sends poisonous snakes, and Moses sets a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone bitten who looks at it lives. The chapter then traces the camps along the route north, quoting a line from the Book of the Wars of the LORD and a song about a well. Israel asks Sihon king of the Amorites for safe passage, is refused, defeats him, and takes over his cities; old poems about Heshbon are quoted, and Israel then defeats Og king of Bashan and settles in the land.

Claim by Claim

21:1
- The Canaanite king of Arad lived in the Negev, the southern region.
- He heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim.
- He fought against Israel.
- He took some of the Israelites captive.
21:2
- Israel made a vow to the LORD.
- Israel said: if you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.
21:3
- The LORD listened to the voice of Israel.
- The LORD gave the Canaanites over to Israel.
- Israel devoted the Canaanites and their cities to destruction.
- The name of the place was called Hormah.
21:4
- They journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea.
- Their purpose was to go around the land of Edom.
- The people became impatient and discouraged on the way.
21:5
- The people spoke against God and against Moses.
- They asked why they had been brought up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness.
- They said there was no bread.
- They said there was no water.
- They said they loathed the worthless food.
21:6
- The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people.
- The serpents bit the people.
- Many people of Israel died.
21:7
- The people came to Moses.
- The people said they had sinned.
- The people said they had spoken against the LORD and against Moses.
- The people asked Moses to pray to the LORD to take the serpents away from them.
- Moses prayed on behalf of the people.
21:8
- The LORD said to Moses to make a fiery serpent.
- The LORD said to set it on a pole.
- The LORD said that everyone who is bitten shall live when he looks at it.
21:9
- Moses made a serpent of bronze.
- Moses put it on the pole.
- If a serpent bit a man, and he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
21:10
- The children of Israel set out.
- They camped at Oboth.
21:11
- They journeyed from Oboth.
- They camped at Ije-abarim.
- Ije-abarim is in the wilderness facing Moab, toward the sunrise.
21:12
- From there they set out.
- They camped in the valley of Zered.
21:13
- From there they set out.
- They camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the border of the Amorites.
- The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.
21:14
- Because of this it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD.
- The book of the wars of the LORD names what he did in the Red Sea and the brooks of Arnon.
21:15
- The book also names the stream of the brooks that goes down to the dwelling of Ar.
- That stream lies along the border of Moab.
21:16
- From there they went to Beer.
- Beer is the well about which the LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to gather the people.
- The LORD said he would give them water.
21:17
- Then Israel sang this song.
- The song said: rise up, O well.
- The song said: sing to it.
21:18
- The song said the princes dug the well.
- The song said the nobles of the people dug it.
- They dug it with a scepter and with their staves.
- From the wilderness they went to Mattanah.
21:19
- From Mattanah they went to Nahaliel.
- From Nahaliel they went to Bamoth.
21:20
- From Bamoth they went to the valley that is in the country of Moab.
- They went to the top of Pisgah.
- Pisgah looks out toward the wasteland.
21:21
- Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites.
- The messengers spoke a message.
21:22
- Israel asked to pass through Sihon's land.
- Israel said they would not turn aside into field or vineyard.
- Israel said they would not drink water from a well.
- Israel said they would go along the king's highway until they had passed through Sihon's territory.
21:23
- Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory.
- Sihon gathered all his people together.
- Sihon went out against Israel into the wilderness.
- Sihon came to Jahaz.
- Sihon fought against Israel.
21:24
- Israel struck Sihon with the edge of the sword.
- Israel took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the children of Ammon.
- The border of the children of Ammon was strong.
21:25
- Israel took all these cities.
- Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites.
- Israel dwelt in Heshbon and in all its dependent villages.
21:26
- Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Sihon had fought against the former king of Moab.
- Sihon had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.
21:27
- Because of this those who speak in proverbs say a saying.
- The saying says: come to Heshbon.
- The saying says: let the city of Sihon be built and established.
21:28
- The saying says a fire went out from Heshbon.
- The saying says a flame went out from the city of Sihon.
- The fire consumed Ar of Moab.
- The fire consumed the lords of the high places of Arnon.
21:29
- The saying says: woe to you, Moab.
- The saying says: you are undone, people of Chemosh.
- The saying says he gave his sons as fugitives and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.
21:30
- The saying says: we have shot at them.
- The saying says Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon.
- The saying says: we have laid waste as far as Nophah, which reaches to Medeba.
21:31
- Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.
21:32
- Moses sent men to spy out Jaazer.
- They captured its dependent villages.
- They drove out the Amorites who were there.
21:33
- They turned and went up by the way of Bashan.
- Og the king of Bashan went out against them.
- Og went out with all his people.
- The battle was at Edrei.
21:34
- The LORD said to Moses not to fear Og.
- The LORD said he had given Og into Moses' hand, along with all his people and his land.
- The LORD said Moses would do to Og as he did to Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Sihon king of the Amorites dwelt at Heshbon.
21:35
- They struck down Og, his sons, and all his people.
- They left him no survivor.
- They took possession of his land.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

21:1: The Canaanites were the settled peoples of the land west of the Jordan; "Canaanite" here marks Arad as a local city-state ruler, not the head of a large kingdom. The "dry southern country" is the Negev, the arid region south of what later became Judah. The Hebrew behind "the road the spies had taken" is uncertain: it may mean a route associated with the earlier scouting expedition, or it may be a place name, Atharim.
21:2: "Completely destroy" translates a Hebrew term (herem) meaning to place something permanently and irrevocably outside ordinary human use by handing it over to God, in wartime, by destroying it rather than taking it as plunder. The vow is that no one will profit from the victory.
21:3: The name Hormah is built on the same Hebrew root as the word for the destruction vowed in verse 2; the name is roughly "Destruction" or "Devoted Place." Naming a site after what happened there is a common feature of these narratives.
21:4: "Red Sea" renders Hebrew yam suph, literally "sea of reeds"; here it refers to the eastern arm of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba. Edom was the territory of the descendants of Esau, southeast of the Dead Sea; its king had refused Israel permission to cross, so the detour is a long southward march.
21:5: The "thin, worthless food" is the manna, the flaky substance described in Exodus 16 as their daily food in the desert. The King James "light bread" does not mean easy to digest; it means insubstantial and contemptible.
21:6: The Hebrew calls these snakes seraphim, "burning ones", either because the bite caused a burning pain and inflammation, or from their appearance. The word is left deliberately vivid rather than being a species name.
21:8: Making an image and setting it on a pole where everyone could see it is the point: it had to be visible from a distance across a camp of thousands.
21:9: The King James "brass" means bronze or copper; brass as we know it was not made then. In Hebrew there is a play on words the English cannot carry: the word for snake (nachash) and the word for bronze (nechoshet) sound alike.
21:10: From here to verse 20 the chapter is largely a travel record, a list of camping stops. Most of these places cannot now be located with confidence.
21:11: Iye-abarim means roughly "the ruins of the Abarim", the Abarim being the range of highlands east of the Dead Sea.
21:12: The Zered was a streambed that ran with water only after rain. Crossing it marked the end of Israel's long years of wandering.
21:13: The Arnon is the deep river gorge running west into the Dead Sea; it formed a natural frontier. The Amorites were a people occupying the highlands east of the Jordan at this point in the story; the term is used broadly in these books for pre-Israelite inhabitants of the region.
21:14: The Book of the Wars of the LORD is a source quoted here and now lost; nothing else of it survives. The quoted lines are among the most damaged in the Hebrew Bible: the King James reads them as "what he did in the Red Sea," while others read the same consonants as place names, "Waheb in Suphah." Both readings are guesses at an obscure text.
21:15: Ar was a Moabite town or district near the Arnon, mentioned again in verse 28. The "streams" are wadis, seasonal watercourses, dry for much of the year and violent after rain.
21:16: Beer is simply the Hebrew word for "well." The place is named for the thing found there.
21:17: This is a work song of a kind still sung by well-diggers in the region into modern times: the diggers address the water directly and call it up.
21:18: "Lawgiver" translates a Hebrew word that can mean either a ruler or commander, or the staff of office that such a person carries; the line may mean the well was dug at a leader's direction, or dug with scepters and staffs. Digging with a staff rather than a tool suggests a formal, ceremonial act by the chiefs rather than ordinary labor.
21:19: The names carry meanings the narrative may be playing on: Nahaliel is roughly "torrents of God," Bamoth is "high places", the hilltop shrine sites mentioned again in verse 28.
21:20: Pisgah is a ridge in the highlands overlooking the Dead Sea from the east; it is where Moses later views the land before his death. "The empty wasteland" translates Jeshimon, which may be a general word for desert or the proper name of a specific barren tract near the Dead Sea.
21:21: Messengers were people sent to carry words to someone far away. There were no phones or mail, so a person had to walk there.
21:22: The King's Highway was a real and well-known trade route running north–south through the highlands east of the Jordan. The request is for safe passage along the main road, with a promise to take nothing from the fields and wells on either side, an ordinary diplomatic arrangement between a traveling group and a local ruler.
21:24: The Jabbok is a river flowing west into the Jordan, well north of the Arnon; the two rivers mark the southern and northern limits of the captured territory. The Ammonites were a people east of that land. The last clause is difficult in Hebrew: it may mean the Ammonite border was fortified, or, following an ancient Greek reading: that Jazer marked the Ammonite border.
21:25: The King James "villages" translates a Hebrew word literally meaning "daughters," the small unwalled settlements that clustered around a fortified city and depended on it for protection.
21:26: This explains why the land was taken from Amorites rather than Moabites: Sihon had already conquered it from Moab, so Moab's claim to it had lapsed before Israel arrived. The point matters because Israel had been forbidden to attack Moab itself.
21:27: "Those who speak in poems" translates a word for ballad-makers or reciters of set pieces, professional singers who preserved victory songs. What follows is such a song, quoted from outside the narrative; it originally celebrated Sihon's defeat of Moab.
21:28: "High places" were open-air shrines, usually on hilltops or raised platforms, where sacrifice and worship were carried out. The "rulers" or "lords" of them were the local chiefs associated with those sanctuaries. Fire going out from a city is a standard image in such songs for an army on campaign.
21:29: Chemosh was the chief god of Moab, and Moabites could be called "the people of Chemosh" much as Israel could be called the people of the LORD. In the song it is Chemosh himself who is said to have abandoned his own worshipers to the enemy, the defeated nation's god blamed for its defeat.
21:30: The Hebrew of this verse is badly damaged and every translation of it is partly conjecture. Dibon, Nophah and Medeba are Moabite towns on the plateau north of the Arnon.
21:32: Jaazer (also spelled Jazer) lay north of Heshbon, toward the Ammonite frontier.
21:33: Bashan is the fertile upland region east of the Sea of Galilee, north of the territory just taken; Edrei was one of its chief cities. Going "up by the way of Bashan" means turning north from the newly captured land.
21:34: "Do not be afraid of him" answers a fear the narrative does not spell out here; elsewhere Og is remembered as a giant of unusual size, the last of an older race of people.

Read Numbers 21