‘And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the South in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the children of Israel.'
At this same time had come the Canaanite king of Arad who, living in ‘the South' (the Canaanite part of the Negeb, compare Genesis 12:9), had ‘heard of the coming of the children of Israel' and hoped to drive them away (Numbers 21:1-3). There is, in the way that this is put, the indication that the arrival of Israel was news which put fear in the hearts of the Canaanites (compare Numbers 14:14; Deuteronomy 2:25; Exodus 15:14-16).
Thus the writer deliberately once more puts us in touch with the history described earlier, which he has deliberately neglected in the middle section. History has, as it were recommenced