Numbers

21.1-35

The word "devote" in this passage means so much more than the casual reading of it delivers in the English language: "Then Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and gave the Canaanites over; so they devoted them and their cities to destruction. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah." (Nu 21:3).

The word devote is from the Hebrew חָרַם (ḥā·rǎm): devote to God, i.e., give a gift exclusively to God, which (once given) must then be destroyed so there will be no human use made of it. "Nevertheless, anything which a man devotes to Yahweh out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own possession, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to Yahweh." (Lev 27:28)

Such was the sacrifice to Yahweh, of these cities who God delivered into their hands. The children of Israel prayed that God would do so, and for His glory and complete reward, they received none of the spoils of the victory, but rather "devoted" it all to Him.

Despite this, the pattern of complaining persisted. No matter how many lessons the children had to learn, their petulence persists. We cannot make this accusation without reflecting on our own nature, as God intends for us to see this accordingly. The Bible is not written merely to be cathartic for a people who were once and nevermore again inadherent to a covenant. No, it is an honest admission unlike any other book from any other religion, truthful in the declaration of the unfaithfulness of its own. If we are to learn from it, we too must recognoze our own consitency in the same thing - our inconsistency and patterns of petulently complaining to God when we don't get our way, even though He has been faithful throughout the ages, time and time again demonstrating both His lovingkindness and His justice.

So despite having just prayed a vow to Yahweh that if He would deliver their enemies into their hands, they would respond in devoting them to Him, the people forget His faithfulness and complain that God has not not provided what they want - verse five is the epitome of a paradox when they declare there is no food, yet in the same sentence they say "we loathe this miserable food." God, having just provided what they need, now endures their complains, even lies, about what they want. Hypocrisy at it's finest. The response is more poignant than even the children of Israel could have imagined - "So Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died." (v6)
In Matthew 7:9-11, Christ responds to the problem of hypocrisy, and the context of His response is nearly identical to Yahweh's, but who among those listening understood that Christ was reminding them of the Israelite's hypocrisy in the wilderness, and when their Father had given them snakes:

“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

Whether the disciples understood, or those listening to Christ in that day, or the Pharisee to whom they reported, or many later readers of Matthew's Gospel, remains to be seen, but the children of Israel appeared to have gotten the point (at least temporarily), as vv10-13 details further travels,continuing toward the Promised Land, confirmed in the Book of the Wars of Yahweh (vvvv14-15). The Bible does not need any extra biblical validating sources, but this is a reference that the Jews would have known to be a historical record of their people. In this case, it would not have been the record validating the Bible, rather the Bible validating the record. The Book of the Wars of Yahweh is a book we no longer have access to, but with it having been cited in the Bible, "this citation at a minimum" would have been an indisputably accurate historical record.

Beginning in verse 21, we see the fullness of the Amorites' iniquity come due. This statement is only meaningful when put into the context of Yahweh's covenant to Abram from Genesis 15. Now that the Israelites are 400 years removed from Abraham, and having been led out of Egypt where they had been enslaved and mistreated for all that time, the Amorites stood between them and the Promised Land (Canaan). This is what God spoke to Abram in Genesis 15:13-16

"Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. “But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

As you read Numbers 21:21-35, you can see a glimpse of God's providential plan working throughout the Bible, because God's promise to Abram in Genesis 15 is fulfilled with specificity here.

CHAPTER 21

1 Then the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.
2 So Israel made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If You will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”
3 Then Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and gave the Canaanites over; so they devoted them and their cities to destruction. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah.
4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient on the way.
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

The Bronze Serpent

6 So Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.
7 Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you; pray to Yahweh, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.
8 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.”
9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
10 Then the sons of Israel set out and camped in Oboth.
11 They then set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness which is opposite Moab, east toward the sunrise.
12 From there they set out and camped in Wadi Zered.
13 From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites, for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.
14 Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of Yahweh,
“Waheb in Suphah,
And the wadis of the Arnon,
15 And the slope of the wadis
That extends to the site of Ar,
And leans to the border of Moab.”
16 And from there they continued to Beer, that is the well where Yahweh said to Moses, “Assemble the people, that I may give them water.”
17 Then Israel sang this song:
“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!
18 “The well, which the leaders dug,
Which the nobles of the people carved out,
With the scepter and with their staffs.”
And from the wilderness they continued to Mattanah,
19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,
20 and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the land of Moab, at the top of Pisgah which overlooks the wasteland.

Sihon and Og Struck Down

21 Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying,
22 “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king’s highway until we have passed through your border.”
23 But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out to meet Israel in the wilderness and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel.
24 Then Israel struck him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the border of the sons of Ammon was Jazer.
25 And Israel took all these cities, and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her towns.
26 For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites. Now it was he who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.
27 Therefore those who use proverbs say,
“Come to Heshbon! Let it be built!
So let the city of Sihon be established.
28 “For a fire went forth from Heshbon,
A flame from the town of Sihon;
It devoured Ar of Moab,
The dominant heights of the Arnon.
29 “Woe to you, O Moab!
You perish, O people of Chemosh!
He has given his sons as fugitives,
And his daughters into captivity,
To an Amorite king, Sihon.
30 “But we have cast them down,
Heshbon perishes as far as Dibon,
And we have made desolate even to Nophah,
Which reaches to Medeba.”
31 Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.
32 And Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its towns and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.
33 Then they turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out to meet them, he and all his people for battle at Edrei.
34 But Yahweh said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
35 So they struck down him and his sons and all his people, until there was no survivor remaining for him; and they possessed his land.

Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Nu 21.