Numbers 21:15

And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Numbers 21:15-16. Ar — A chief city in Moab. Beer — This place, and Mattanah, Nahaliel, and Bamoth, named here, (Numbers 21:19,) are not mentioned among those places where they pitched or encamped, chap. 33. Probably they did not pitch or encamp in these places, but only pass by or through them. I will give them water — In a miraculous manner. Before they prayed, God granted, and prevented them with the blessings of goodness. And as the brazen serpent was the figure of Christ, so is this well a figure of the Spirit, who is poured forth for our comfort, and from him flow rivers of living waters.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:10-20 We have here the removes of the children of Israel, till they came to the plains of Moab, from whence they passed over Jordan into Canaan. The end of their pilgrimage was near. They set forward. It were well if we did thus; and the nearer we come to heaven, were so much the more active and abundant in the work of the Lord. The wonderful success God granted to his people, is here spoken of, and, among the rest, their actions on the river Arnon, at Vaheb in Suphah, and other places on that river. In every stage of our lives, nay, in every step, we should notice what God has wrought for us; what he did at such a time, and what in such a place, ought to be distinctly remembered. God blessed his people with a supply of water. When we come to heaven, we shall remove to the well of life, the fountain of living waters. They received it with joy and thankfulness, which made the mercy doubly sweet. With joy must we draw water out of the wells of salvation, Isa 12:3. As the brazen serpent was a figure of Christ, who is lifted up for our cure, so is this well a figure of the Spirit, who is poured forth for our comfort, and from whom flow to us rivers of living waters, Joh 7:38,39. Does this well spring up in our souls? If so, we should take the comfort to ourselves, and give the glory to God. God promised to give water, but they must open the ground. God's favours must be expected in the use of such means as are within our power, but still the power is only of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To the dwelling of Ar - Ar (compare Numbers 21:28; Isaiah 15:1) was on the bank of the Arnon, lower down the stream than where the Israelites crossed. Near the spot where the upper Arnon receives the tributary Nahaliel Numbers 21:19, there rises, in the midst of the meadow-land between the two torrents, a hill covered with the ruins of the ancient city (Joshua 13:9, Joshua 13:16; compare Deuteronomy 2:36).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. Ar—the capital of Moab.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ar; a chief city in Moab, as appears from Isaiah 15:1, of which Numbers 21:28.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar,.... All that part of the country which lay upon the stream, as far as the city of Ar, the metropolis of Moab, called Ar of Moab, Isaiah 15:1,

and lieth upon the border of Moab; as that city did; so far goes the quotation out of the aforesaid book, as a proof of what was taken by the Amorites from the Moabites, and were not in their possession when Israel were upon their borders; and therefore, in taking them from the Amorites, did no wrong to Moab.

Geneva Study Bible

And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. the slope] Probably something steeper, such as a cliff, is intended. The sing. is not found elsewhere; the plural always in the expression ‘the slopes of the Pisgah’ (Deuteronomy 3:17; Deuteronomy 4:49, Joshua 12:3; Joshua 13:20) except in Joshua 10:40.

the dwelling of Ar] A poetical expression for the site of Ar, the city being personified. ‘Ar means ‘city’ (LXX. Ἤρ represents ‘Ir, the ordinary Heb. form of the word); in Numbers 21:28 it is ‘Ar of Moab,’ equivalent to the ‘city of Moab’ (Numbers 22:36); cf. Isaiah 15:1. The site of Ar is unknown, but its locality is indicated in Numbers 22:36 (see note there).

leaneth upon] A poetical parallel to the preceding ‘inclineth towards.’

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - And at the stream of the brooks. Rather, "and the pouring (וְאֶשֶׁד) of the brooks," i.e., the slope of the watershed. Ar. עָר is an archaic form of עִיר, a city. The same place is called Ar Moab in verse 28. It was situate on the Arnon somewhat lower down than where the Israelites crossed its "brooks." The peculiarity of the site, "in the midst of the river" (Joshua 13:9, cf. Deuteronomy 2:36), and extensive ruins, have enabled travelers to identify the spot on which it stood at the junction of the Mojeb (Arnon) and Lejum (Nahaliel, verse 19). It is uncertain whether the Greeks gave the name of Areopolis, as Jerome asserts, to Ar, but in later times it was Rabbah, a town many miles further south in the heart of Moab which bore this name. Ar was at this period the boundary town of Moab, and as such was respected by the Israelites (Deuteronomy 2:9, 29). Numbers 21:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Therefore," sc., because the Lord had thus given king Sihon, with all his land, into the hand of Israel, "it is written in the book of the wars of the Lord: Vaheb (Jehovah takes) in storm, and the brooks of Arnon and the valley of the brooks, which turns to the dwelling of Ar, and leans upon the border of Moab." The book of the wars of Jehovah is neither an Amoritish book of the conflicts of Baal, in which the warlike feats performed by Sihon and other Amoritish heroes with the help of Baal were celebrated in verse, as G. Unruh fabulously asserts in his Zug der Isr. aus Aeg. nach Canaan (p. 130), nor a work "dating from the time of Jehoshaphat, containing the early history of the Israelites, from the Hebrew patriarchs till past the time of Joshua, with the law interwoven," which is the character that Knobel's critical fancy would stamp upon it, but a collection of odes of the time of Moses himself, in celebration of the glorious acts of the Lord to and for the Israelites; and "the quotation bears the same relation to the history itself, as the verses of Krner would bear to the writings of any historian of the wars of freedom, who had himself taken part in these wars, and introduced the verses into his own historical work" (Hengstenberg).

(Note: "That such a book should arise in the last days of Moses, when the youthful generation began for the first time to regard and manifest itself, both vigorously and generally, as the army of Jehovah, is so far from being a surprising fact, that we can scarcely imagine a more suitable time for the commencement of such a work" (Baumgarten). And if this is the case, the allusion to this collection of odes cannot be adduced as an argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, since Moses certainly did not write out the history of the journey from Kadesh to the Arboth Moab until after the two kings of the Amorites had been defeated, and the land to the east of the Jordan conquered, or till the Israelites had encamped in the steppes of Moab, opposite to Jericho.)

The strophe selected from the ode has neither subject nor verb in it, as the ode was well known to the contemporaries, and what had to be supplied could easily be gathered from the title, "Wars of Jehovah." Vaheb is no doubt the proper name of an Amoritish fortress; and בּסוּפה, "in storm," is to be explained according to Nahum 1:3, "The Lord, in the storm is His way." "Advancing in storm, He took Vaheb and the brooks of Arnon," i.e., the different wadys, valleys cut by brooks, which open into the Arnon. הנּחלים אשׁד, lit., pouring of the brooks, from אשׁד, effusio, the pouring, then the place where brooks pour down, the slope of mountains or hills, for which the term אשׁדה is generally used in the plural, particularly to denote the slopes of the mountains of Pisgah (Deuteronomy 3:17; Deuteronomy 4:49; Joshua 12:3; Joshua 13:20), and the hilly region of Palestine, which formed the transition from the mountains to the plain (Joshua 10:40 and Joshua 12:8). שׁבת, the dwelling, used poetically for the dwelling-place, as in 2 Samuel 23:7 and Obadiah 1:3. ער (Ar), the antiquated form for עיר, a city, is the same as Ar Moab in Numbers 21:28 and Isaiah 15:1, "the city of Moab, on the border of the Arnon, which is at the end of the (Moabitish) territory" (Numbers 22:36). It was called Areopolis by the Greeks, and was near to Aror (Deuteronomy 2:36 and Joshua 13:9), probably standing at the confluence of the Lejum and Mojeb, in the "fine green pasture land, in the midst of which there is a hill with some ruins," and not far away the ruin of a small castle, with a heap of broken columns (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 636). This Ar is not to be identified with the modern Rabba, in the midst of the land of the Moabites, six hours to the south of Lejum, to which the name Areopolis was transferred in the patristic age, probably after the destruction of Ar, the ancient Areopolis, by an earthquake, of which Jerome gives an account in connection with his own childhood (see his Com. on Isaiah 15:1-9), possibly the earthquake which occurred in the year a.d. 342, and by which many cities of the East were destroyed, and among others Nicomedia (cf. Hengstenberg, Balaam, pp. 525-528; Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. pp. 1212ff.; and v. Raumer, Palstina, pp. 270, 271, Ed. 4).