(As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God giveth us.
And the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me. This passage represents the Moabites as brotherly and hospitable (see, however, the note at Deuteronomy 23:4; Judges 11:17). But the rejection of Moses' request by Sihon, and his opposition to the advance of the Israelites (Numbers 21:23; Judges 11:26), drew down on himself and his Amorite subjects the predicted doom in the first pitched battlefield with the Canaanites, and secured to Israel not only the possession of a fine pastoral country, but, what was of more importance to them, a free access to the Jordan on the east.