🔢WEB · Numbers 21:31
What does Numbers 21:31 mean?
"Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites."
— Numbers 21:31 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
for a fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon. It has devoured Ar of Moab, The lords of the high places of the Arnon.
Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.
We have shot at them. Heshbon has perished even to Dibon. We have laid waste even to Nophah, Which reaches to Medeba.”
Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.
Moses sent to spy out Jazer. They took its villages, and drove out the Amorites who were there.
They turned and went up by the way of Bashan. Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Don’t fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, with all his people, and his land. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
Explanation
Numbers 21:31 is a brief but significant summary statement: after Israel defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, they took possession of his territory and settled there. The verse simply reports the outcome of the preceding military campaign — the land that had belonged to a hostile Amorite king now belonged to Israel, and Israelites were living in it. It is less a theological statement in itself than a historical notation, but it caps a narrative full of meaning.
The context is essential to understanding the verse. Numbers 21 describes the final stage of Israel's forty-year wilderness journey, as the nation approached the plains of Moab on the way to the Jordan River. Moses, traditionally credited
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