Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1179

 and Mephaot in Jos 13:18; Jos 21:37, and Jer 48:21, also points (see at Jos 13:18).

verses 24-26
Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, i.e., without quarter (see Gen 34:26), and took possession of his land “from Arnon (Mojeb) to the Jabbok, unto the children of Ammon,” i.e., to the upper Jabbok, the modern Nahr or Moiet Ammân. The Jabbok, now called Zerka, i.e., the blue, does not take its rise, as Seetzen supposed, on the pilgrim-road by the castle of Zerka; but its source, according to Abulfeda (tab. Syr. p. 91) and Buckingham, is the Nahr Ammân, which flowed down from the ancient capital of the Ammonites, and was called the upper Jabbok, and formed the western border of the Ammonites towards the kingdom of Sihon, and subsequently towards Gad (Deu 2:37; Deu 3:16; Jos 12:2). “For the border of the Ammonites was strong” (firm), i.e., strongly fortified; “for which reason Sihon had only been able to push his conquests to the upper Jabbok, not into the territory of the Ammonites.” This explanation of Knobel's is perfectly correct; since the reason why the Israelites did not press forward into the country of the Ammonites, was not the strength of their frontier, but the word of the Lord, “Make not war upon them, for I shall give thee no possession of the land of the children of Ammon” (Deu 2:19). God had only promised the patriarchs, on behalf of their posterity, that He would give them the land of Canaan, which was bounded towards the east by the Jordan (Num 34:2-12; compared with Gen 10:19 and Gen 15:19-21); and the Israelites would have received no settlement at all on the eastern side of the Jordan, had not the Canaanitish branch of the Amorites extended itself to that side in the time of Moses, and conquered a large portion of the possessions of the Moabites, and also (according to Jos 13:25, as compared with Jdg 11:13) of the Ammonites, driving back the Moabites as far as the Arnon, and the Ammonites behind the Nahr Ammân. With the defeat of the Amorites, all the land that they had conquered passed into the possession of the Israelites, who took possession of these towns (cf. Deu 2:34-36). The statement in Num 21:25, that Israel settled in all the towns of the Amorites, is somewhat anticipatory of the history itself, as the settlement did not occur till Moses gave the conquered land to the tribes of Reuben and Gad for a possession (Num 32). The only places mentioned here are Heshbon and her daughters, i.e., the smaller towns belonging to it (cf. Jos 13:17), which are enumerated singly in Num 32:34-38, and Jos 13:15-28. In explanation of the expression, “Heshbon and her