NUMBERS CHAPTER 21 The Canaanites fight against Israel, and take some of them prisoners, Numbers 21:1. Through God's assistance they overcome them, and destroy their cities, Numbers 21:2,3. The people murmur, Numbers 21:4,5; are plagued with fiery serpents, Numbers 21:6. They repent, Numbers 21:7. A brazen serpent erected, to which they look, and are saved, Numbers 21:8,9. They journey, Numbers 21:10-16. Their hymn for water given at Beer, Numbers 21:17. They sue for passage to the Amorites; are denied; fight them; overcome, and dwell in their cities, Numbers 21:18-26. Proverbial sayings concerning it, Numbers 21:27-30. Og king of Bashan, his sons, and all his people, are killed by the Israelites, and their land possessed by them, Numbers 21:33-35. King Arad the Canaanite; or rather, the Canaanite king of Arad; for Arad is not the name of a man, but of a city or territory, as may seem from Joshua 12:14 Judges 1:16, if at least this was the same place with that. And he seems to be called a Canaanite in a general sense, as the Amorites and others sometimes are. In the south, to wit, of Canaan, as appears from Numbers 33:40, towards the east, and near the Dead Sea. By the way of the spies; not of those spies which Moses sent to spy the land, Numbers 13:17, for that was done thirty-eight years before this, and they went so privately, that the Canaanites took no notice of them, nor knew which way they came or went; but of the spies which he himself sent out to observe the marches and motions of the Israelites. But the words may be otherwise rendered; either thus, in the manner of spies, so the sense is, when he heard that divers of the Israelites came into or towards his country in the nature of spies, to prepare the way for the rest; or thus, by the way of Atharim, a place so called, as the seventy interpreters here take it, and it seems not improbable. Took some of them prisoners; which God permitted for Israel's humiliation and punishment, and to teach them not to expect the conquest of that land from their own wisdom or valour, but wholly from God's favour and assistance. See Deuteronomy 9:4 Psalms 44:3,4.
Related Commentaries of Numbers 21:1
Numbers 21:1
1 And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners.