And Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,
Israel now meets the first kingdom standing between them and the Jordan. Moses sends messengers instead of an army, which raises two questions: why ask permission from a people already marked for judgment, and what happens when the answer is no?
Israel's first move toward Sihon was not an attack. One writer draws out the principle:
We meet people we do not want to fight, but they will not let us pass in peace. Our war is with those who hold our inheritance beyond the Jordan. If someone attacks us, we must defend ourselves; but we must not be the attackers. Israel wants to pass quietly through the land of the Amorites, but the Amorites will not allow it. So they suffer the consequences of the war they chose to make on the people of God.
Another writer asks what methods God gave Israel to use with this king:
Did He authorise Israel to force Sihon with threats of vengeance, or to win him by flattery? Did He offer him the book of the law with one hand and the sword with the other? Nothing of the sort. Look at the way the LORD treated even these enemies of Israel. "Let me pass through your land. I will go only by the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink. Only let me pass through on foot." … Israel kept the path of right and courtesy. Sihon rushed on them to his own ruin.
Not every writer reads Israel's message as faultless. One asks why they needed to ask at all:
God's original gift to Israel included the land of the Amorite. So why send messengers asking permission to pass through it, as they did to Edom? … God had given them the land of the Amorite. Was it faith to ask only for leave to pass through it? The request did bring out their hatred and their effort to stop Israel, and their destruction followed. But the question remains: should Israel not have taken possession at once?
So commentators differ: some see the path of right and courtesy, others a request that fell short of faith.
The name of this people carries a warning:
What is the character of the Amorites? Their name means "Sayer." That recalls the Lord's words about the scribes and Pharisees: "they preach, but do not practice" (Matt. 23:3). They are those who have a form of godliness, but only know how to use their tongue to get their own way.
The king's own name points the same way, and it shapes how Israel answered him:
Sihon's name means "sweeping away," for mere talk tends to sweep away all that is good, for it is empty vanity. So when Sihon and his army attacked, Israel did not answer him with talk, but with decided action.
Sihon's "no" did not wreck God's plan. It served it:
They did not want to quarrel with the king of Heshbon, even though he was an Amorite, unless he was actually inside the holy land. But God was behind it: these Amorites, to their own ruin, would not let Israel pass through in peace. This makes Israel's case clearer still. People might have assumed that the Amorite had to be removed anyway, since God had marked that most wicked race for destruction.
One writer sees an order in the chapter, and the same order in our own lives:
As at the beginning of our chapter, so at the end, we hear the noise of conflict. Sihon had struck Moab, but now he falls before Israel. So does Og the king of Bashan, even though he was a giant, as we learn in Deuteronomy 3:11. First come the events that picture victory over the flesh within. Then comes the record of victory over the foes outside. And this is indeed the way things work in our spiritual experience.
The chapter preserves old songs and records about this territory, and they had a legal purpose:
These foreign traditions are purposely quoted with the exceptional aim of proving, from witnesses unquestionable in the eyes of their most zealous opponents, that the land in dispute, when Israel took it by conquest, did not belong to Ammon or Moab, but to the doomed races of Canaan and its neighbourhood. To the country of the former they had no just claim; that of the Amorite was handed over to them by God.
- Ask first. Israel asked for safe passage instead of threatening war — the path of right and courtesy, with no force and no flattery.
- Ask, or take? Commentators differ: was the polite request proper restraint, or a failure to claim at once what God had already given?
- Words, not deeds. "Amorite" means sayer; "Sihon" means sweeping away. Their strength was their tongue, and Israel answered it with decided action.
- The no was God's. Israel did not come looking for a fight. God was behind Sihon's refusal, and that refusal ruined him.
- Inside, then outside. Victory over the flesh within comes first, then victory over the enemies outside — the same order in a believer's experience.
Let us pass through thy land; we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink water out of the wells; on the king's road will we go until we have passed thy border.
Israel's road to the Jordan ran through the land of the Amorites, ruled by Sihon at Heshbon. The message Moses sent was a request, not a threat. So why ask permission for land God had already given? And what turned a polite request into a war?
Israel's request is narrow. They will keep to the road, touch nothing on either side, and pay for what they use. One writer asks how God taught Israel to treat even an enemy:
Look at the principles of the Lord's discipline here. Did He authorise Israel to force Sihon with threats of vengeance, or to win him by flattery? Nothing of the sort. Look at the way in which the Lord treated even these enemies of Israel. "Let me pass through your land. I will go only by the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot." "But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might give him into your hand." … Israel kept the path of right and courtesy. Sihon rushed on them to his own ruin.
The same restraint carries a lesson for anyone who follows God. Israel had a real war ahead of them, but this was not it:
We meet people we do not want to fight, but they will not let us pass in peace. Our war is with those who hold our inheritance beyond the Jordan. If someone attacks us, we must defend ourselves; but we must never be the one who attacks first. Israel wants to pass quietly through the land of the Amorites. The Amorites will not allow it, and they suffer the consequences of the war they had sought against the people of God.
Commentators differ here. Some read the message as plain courtesy. One writer sees a problem in it, because God had already given this land to Israel:
The land of the Amorite was part of God's original gift to Israel. So why send messengers asking permission to pass through it, as they did to Edom? The land of Edom and of Moab was no part of what God had promised Israel. God had commanded that Israel should not take it. But the land of the Amorite was given to them. Was it faith to ask only for passage through it? … The question remains: should Israel not have taken possession at once? To ask permission to pass quietly through a land God had given them — was that the obedience of faith?
Whatever the answer, Israel's right to the land was never in doubt. God had said so to Moses:
These lands were won by conquest, and won according to God's will. "Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to take possession, that you may occupy his land" (Deut. 2:31) is the Lord's word to Moses. So there can be no question about their right to the land.
One writer draws a lesson from the meaning of the Amorites' name:
When Sihon refused, Israel did not turn away, as they did from Edom. Sihon came out with an army to fight against Israel. What is the character of the Amorites? Their name means "Sayer," which reminds us of the Lord's words about the scribes and Pharisees: "they preach, but do not practice" (Matt. 23:3). They are those who have a form of godliness, but only know how to use their tongue to get their own way.
The peaceful terms of verse 22 were not lost detail. They became Israel's legal defence long afterwards, when Ammon claimed the same land:
Israel offered to pass through the land of the Amorites on the king's highway, without drinking the water of the well. Sihon their king refused. He "gathered all his people together … and fought against Israel" (Num. 21:21-23). This was the undoing of Sihon and his people… Heshbon, the city of Sihon, once belonged to Moab. But Israel did not take it from Moab; they took it from the Amorites. About three hundred years later, Jephthah quoted this history to the king of the Ammonites. That king claimed the land Israel had taken from Sihon, king of the Amorites, as belonging to Ammon (Judges 11:12-27).
- Request — Israel asked only to use the road. They would touch no field or vineyard and would pay for their water. This was the path of right and courtesy, not force or flattery.
- Restraint — the real war lay beyond the Jordan. God's people defend themselves when attacked, but they never strike first.
- Riddle — writers differ. Was asking permission for land already given the obedience of faith, or a lack of confidence in God?
- Right — Sihon's refusal settled nothing about ownership. God's own word, "Begin to take possession," left no doubt about Israel's title.
- Record — Sihon rejected a peaceful offer. Three hundred years later, Jephthah used that fact against Ammon's claim to the land.
But Sihon would not suffer Israel to go through his border; and Sihon gathered all his people, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.
Israel asked Sihon for safe passage through his land. His answer was an army. This verse turns a peaceful appeal into Israel's first real conquest, and it raises a hard question: why did God let the refusal happen?
Commentators note the restraint in how Israel approached this king.
In this case let us see the principles of the Lord's discipline. Did He authorise Israel to force Sihon with threats of vengeance, or to win him by flattery? … Nothing of the sort… Israel kept the path of right and courtesy. Sihon rushed on them to his own ruin; and only so did Israel strike down and drive out the king of Heshbon.
Another writer turns the same restraint into a rule for believers who meet people blocking their way:
We meet people we do not want to fight, but they will not let us pass in peace… If they attack us, we must defend ourselves. But we are not to be the aggressors. Israel wants to pass quietly through the land of the Amorites. The Amorites will not allow it. So they suffer the consequences of the war they had sought against the people of God.
Sihon's stubbornness was no accident. Writers trace it back to God's own purpose.
God Himself had ordered things so. He knew well that the presence of the Amorites on their borders would be a constant snare and evil. He allowed the Amorites to have no confidence in Israel's peaceful intentions, for the very purpose of putting Israel in possession of the land.
That purpose also clears Israel of greed or bloodlust:
What is emphasised here… is that God gave him into their hand. Even the stubbornness that refused passage to the advancing army came from Him, since the wickedness of the Amorites was now full… Neither greed for land nor love of destruction drove Israel to bring this merciless removal on Sihon and his people. The mercy was for the world, in rooting out of it a deadly evil.
Commentators differ here. Kelly and Darby see courtesy. Another writer asks whether it was faith to ask at all, since God had already given this land to Israel.
God's original gift to Israel included the land of the Amorite. So the question arises: why send messengers asking permission to pass through it, as they did to Edom? The lands of Edom and Moab were no part of Israel's promised possession, and God had commanded that they should not be driven out. The land of the Amorite was given. Was it faith to ask only to pass through it? The asking did bring out their hatred and their effort to stop Israel. Their destruction was the result. But the question remains — should Israel not have taken possession at once?
One writer finds a picture in the names themselves — the king's, his city's, and the battlefield at Jahaz.
There is not much agreement about his name… It may be, actively, "sweeping away," as pride of intellect would sweep away the things of God. He is always called king of Heshbon, where he lived. The common version only translates that word as "account," "device," or "reason." It certainly gives the thought of mental work. He comes out to meet Israel at Jahatz, which Gesenius gives, from the Arabic, as "a place trodden down" — probably a "threshing-floor."
Another writer reads the king's name the same way, and draws a lesson about answering words with deeds.
Sihon's name means "sweeping away," for mere talk tends to sweep away all that is good, since it is empty vanity. On this occasion, then, when Sihon and his army attacked, Israel did not meet him with talk but with decided action. By the grace and power of God they defeated this proud enemy and took his cities… So Israel showed something of the courage of faith before they ever entered the land of Canaan.
One writer brings this home to the Christian life. What God has given us, we still have to take hold of.
As soon as we begin to possess, opposition springs up. The old powers do not yield without a struggle. It is a hard business… It means exercise and conflict and trouble. But it is well worth it. Then comes the joy of victory — the joy of really holding a little more of what is ours by an unquestionable title, given to us by God.
- Ask first. Israel asked to pass through. They did not threaten or flatter. They struck only after Sihon attacked.
- Refusal served God. The refusal itself came from God. He used it to sweep away a people whose wickedness was full and to put Israel in the land.
- A question left open. Was it courtesy to ask permission for land God had already given, or a lack of faith? Commentators differ.
- Talk meets action. The names picture a king of words and reasoning. Israel answered him not with talk but with action.
- Possession costs conflict. You keep what God gives only through struggle. Opposition rises the moment you take hold. Then comes the joy of victory.
And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.
Israel asked Sihon for safe passage and got a war instead — and with it their first land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok. Why this land, and what does a victory east of the Jordan have to do with the promise of Canaan?
Israel did not want this war.
We meet people we do not wish to fight, but they will not let us pass peaceably. Our warfare is with those who hold our inheritance beyond Jordan. If we are attacked, we must defend ourselves; but we are not to be the aggressors. Israel wants to pass quietly through the land of the Amorites. But the Amorites will not allow it. They suffer the consequences of the war they had sought against the people of God. Israel takes their cities. Already on this side of Jordan they begin to enjoy, ahead of time, the possession of the promise.
God had signed this land over to Israel before a sword was drawn.
So two things are quite definite. First, God had given. Second, He had also begun to give. A superficial reader might object to this. He might demand the reverse order, if we are to accept both statements: first, He began to give; second, He had fully given. But the Scriptural order is the right one. First He gives, so that the title deeds are ours. Then He begins to give practically and in detail, as we begin to possess.
Because the title was real, taking the land was not theft:
Both of these kings — Sihon and Og — hold land that God has given to Israel. Israel may seize it and keep it — indeed, should do so… Whatever God has given, we may take from His hand without suspicion, if it really is from His hand.
The land stopped at Ammon's border, and that limit was deliberate. Later a king of Ammon claimed Israel had stolen this same strip.
The answer was not true. The king of Ammon did not speak honestly. Israel had not taken those lands, as he pretended. The Ammonites had lost them before Israel ever took them from others. Those others Israel was free to attack and plunder. But God had forbidden Israel to plunder Ammon, Moab, or Edom. God held even to a distant tie of connection. That is a striking proof and witness of the ways of our God… The lands might be good pasture. The temptation might be great. Moab or Ammon might give real provocation. On human grounds there might be a just right of conquest; but all this would not do.
Israel's appetite does not explain what happened to Sihon's people. God's verdict on the Amorites does.
Moses stresses here that God gave Sihon into their hand. Even the stubbornness that refused passage to the advancing army came from Him, since the iniquity of the Amorites was now full… Neither greed for land nor love of destroying brought this on Sihon and his people. The mercy was for the world, in rooting a deadly evil out of it.
Commentators differ on Israel's opening move. Darby reads it as restraint. Others ask whether it showed doubt about God's promise.
God's original gift to Israel included the land of the Amorite. So why send messengers asking permission to pass through it, as they did to Edom?… They asked to pass quietly through a land God had given them. Was that the obedience of faith? On the Amorite there was righteous retribution. They had taken that land from Moab, and now Israel, by the will of God, takes it from them.
Whatever the hesitation at the start, the fight itself steadied them.
When Sihon and his army attacked, Israel did not meet him with talk, but with decided action. By the grace and power of God they defeated this proud enemy and took possession of his cities. So Israel showed something of the courage of faith before they entered the land of Canaan. In this way God was preparing them for the conquest of the land.
This eastern territory was never an accident or an afterthought.
So the land of Israel's inheritance lay on both sides of the Jordan, just as God had determined beforehand… This is a picture of the full inheritance of the heavenly saints, which takes in heaven and earth. In symbolic language, it takes in what is east of Jordan as well as what is west, for Jordan is a picture of death.
- Given. The title deeds came before the battle — God gave the land, then began to give it in practice as Israel moved in.
- Bounded. God handed Sihon's land over, yet forbade touching Edom, Moab and Ammon. Old ties still counted with Him.
- Judged. Sihon's fall was a sentence carried out on a full measure of evil, not a land grab.
- Grasped. Faith had to act. Asking to pass through land already promised raises a question: did Israel trust the gift?
- Enlarged. East and west of Jordan together picture an inheritance that spans earth and heaven.
And Israel took all these cities, and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, at Heshbon, and in all its dependent villages.
Here Israel stops passing by other people's land and starts living in it. The cities of Sihon, king of the Amorites, become Israel's homes — ground they had only asked to walk through.
Israel is still on the wilderness side of the Jordan. Yet taking these cities is more than a win in battle. It is the promise starting to come true.
We meet people we do not want to fight, but they will not let us pass in peace. Our warfare is with those who hold our inheritance beyond the Jordan. If someone attacks us, we must defend ourselves; but we are not to be the aggressors. Israel wants to pass quietly through the land of the Amorites. The Amorites will not allow it, and they suffer the consequences of the war they had sought against the people of God. Israel takes their cities, and already on this side of the Jordan begins to enjoy, ahead of time, the possession of the promise.
God had told Israel to leave Edom and Moab alone. The Amorite land was different. One writer asks whether asking to pass through it was the right move at all.
The land of the Amorite was part of God's original gift to Israel. So why send messengers asking permission to pass through it, as they did to Edom? The land of Edom and of Moab was no part of Israel's promised possession; God had commanded that they should not be driven out. The land of the Amorite was given. Was it faith to ask only to pass through it? The request did bring out their hatred, and their attempt to stop Israel. Their destruction followed. But the question remains: should Israel not have taken possession at once? Upon the Amorite there was righteous retribution, for they had taken that land from Moab; and now Israel, by the will of God, takes it from them.
Commentators differ here. Darby sees the request as restraint, since Israel were not to be aggressors. This writer sees it as a failure to trust what God had already given.
Heshbon had not always belonged to Sihon. That detail still mattered centuries later, when Ammon claimed the land and Israel's leader Jephthah had to answer them.
Israel offered to pass through the land of the Amorites on the king's highway, without drinking the water of the well. Sihon their king refused, gathered all his people together and fought against Israel (Num. 21:21-23). This was the undoing of Sihon and his people. Israel defeated them completely and took possession of their land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the Ammonites (Num. 21:24). Heshbon, the city of Sihon, once belonged to Moab, but Israel did not take it from Moab; they took it from the Amorites. About three hundred years later, Jephthah used this against the king of the Ammonites, who claimed for Ammon the land Israel had taken from Sihon, king of the Amorites (Judges 11:12-27).
One writer sees the Amorites as a picture of an enemy whose religion is all talk.
What is the character of the Amorites? Their name means "Sayer," which reminds us of the Lord's words about the scribes and Pharisees, the religious teachers of His day — they say things and do not do them (Matthew 23:3). They are people who keep the outward form of godliness, but only know how to use their tongue to get their own way.
Israel gave that enemy the only answer it understands.
Sihon's name means "sweeping away," because empty talk tends to sweep away all that is good. So when Sihon and his army attacked, Israel did not meet him with talk, but with firm action. By the grace and power of God they defeated this proud enemy and took possession of his cities (vv. 24-26). So Israel showed something of the courage of faith before they ever entered the land of Canaan. In this way God was preparing them for the conquest of the land.
East of the Jordan was part of the inheritance too. One writer sees in the two sides of the river a picture of something larger.
The Amorite territory east of the Jordan was to form part of the inheritance of Israel, and God told Moses so… So they took the country of Sihon, and that of Og as well (Num. 21:24, 35; Deut. 3:12). The land of Israel's inheritance lay on both sides of the Jordan, settled beforehand by God — though it does not appear that He meant any of them to live on the east of that river… So we must remember that the inheritance of the people, as God designed it, lay east of the Jordan as well as west. This is a picture of the full inheritance of the heavenly saints, which takes in heaven and earth.
- Given. God had already granted Israel the Amorite land. Edom and Moab He told them to leave alone.
- Contested. Israel asked only to pass through. Sihon refused and attacked, and it destroyed him. One writer asks whether faith should have claimed the land from the start.
- Taken. Against an enemy whose name means "Sayer," Israel answered talk with decided action, and by God's power took his cities.
- Settled. Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages. Their claim held so well that Jephthah still argued from it three hundred years later.
- Foreshadowed. Living in these cities east of the Jordan was the promise coming true ahead of time — a first taste of an inheritance that reaches to heaven and earth.
For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites; and he had fought against the former king of Moab, and had taken all his land out of his hand, even unto the Arnon.
This verse pauses to explain how Sihon came to own the land Israel had just taken. Heshbon once belonged to Moab, and the Amorite king seized it before Israel ever arrived — so why does Moses record the earlier owner?
Verses 26-30 read like an aside. One writer explains why Moses quotes outside records here:
The account of this makes two references. One is to a book of that day, the book of the wars of Jehovah (verse 14). The other is to sayings or legends that were passed around at the time (verses 27-30). This gives no support at all to the theory that Moses composed the Pentateuch out of earlier material floating among the Israelites of his age and their Gentile neighbours. These foreign traditions, written and spoken, are quoted on purpose, with one special aim. They prove that the land in dispute, when Israel took it by conquest, did not belong to Ammon or Moab, but to the doomed races of Canaan and the region around it. And they prove it from witnesses that Israel's most zealous opponents could not question. Israel had no just claim to the country of Ammon or Moab. God gave them the land of the Amorite. The Amorite had taken it from Moab, and Israel took it from the Amorite.
This record of the earlier owner mattered far beyond Moses' own day:
Heshbon, the city of Sihon, once belonged to Moab. But Israel did not take it from Moab; Israel took it from the Amorites. About three hundred years later, Jephthah quoted this to the king of the children of Ammon. That king claimed that the land Israel had taken from Sihon, king of the Amorites, belonged to Ammon (Judges 11:12-27).
Why could Israel take this land and not Moab's? One writer also sees an older score being settled:
The land of Edom and of Moab formed no part of Israel's promised possession. God commanded that Israel should not drive those nations out. The land of the Amorite, though, God gave to Israel... On the Amorite there was righteous retribution, for they had taken that land from Moab. And now Israel, by the will of God, takes it from them.
The song in verses 27-30 began as an Amorite victory chant about this very capture:
The Amorite boasted against Moab. Israel now boasts over the Amorite, and in mockery turns their boasting against them. They had a national song celebrating the capture of Heshbon, and Israel takes it up as a proverb against them. In his boasting song, Sihon seems to have made the captured city the source of the fire that went out and consumed Ar of Moab... If fire came from Heshbon and destroyed Ar of Moab, fire came from Israel and Heshbon perished.
Some writers read these nations as pictures of spiritual conditions. One draws a warning from how easily Moab lost the city:
We are told that Heshbon, Sihon's chief city, had been captured from the Moabites, for the self-satisfied, lazy pride of man (as seen in Moab) will often give way to the persuasive talk of a deceiver. Our only protection from such things is a vital knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
One writer follows the meanings of the names, and finds a lesson in who ends up holding the city:
It is Reuben who builds up again Sihon's capital, Heshbon, which falls to him (Numbers 32:37). "Heshbon" means "the reason, cause, or ground of a thing as an object of thought or study." ... Sihon cannot hold Heshbon against Reuben, although the Moabite may have had to give it up to him. And so "reason" is not alien to faith. Faith only destroys reason in its alien form, in order to build it up again more securely.
The same writer applies this beyond Heshbon:
Do not give up reason because Satan is using it against the truth of God. Do not refuse natural blessings because men turn them into carnality and disorder. Whatever God has given, we may take from His hand without suspicion, if it is indeed from His hand.
- Boast — Heshbon fell to Sihon first, and the Amorites made a song about it. Moab's self-satisfied pride gave way to a deceiver's persuasive talk.
- Record — Moses cites the enemy's own song as evidence. Even hostile witnesses confirm that the land was Amorite, not Moabite, when Israel took it.
- Restraint — Israel took nothing from Moab or Edom; God had forbidden it. Only the Amorite territory was theirs by gift.
- Retribution — Israel received by God's will what the Amorite had seized from Moab. The boast that burned Ar of Moab ended with Heshbon itself in ruins.
- Rebuilding — Heshbon, the city of "reasoning," does not stay in enemy hands. Reuben builds it again. What an enemy misuses, faith may still take back from God's hand and hold securely.