The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 297

the other, and this circumstance m'IIBt 'have Wll8 at that time the boundary (see on abated the insolence of the Edomites. More- ver. 26). over, they must now have seen enough of Ver. U. -Wherefore, i. e. becauae tba Israel to know that, while immensely for- Amorites had wrested from Moab all to the midable in number and discipline, he had no north of Amon. In the book of the wars hostile designs against them. It is therefore of the Lord. N otbing is known of this book not surprising to find from Dent. ii 6 that but what appears bore. If it should seem on this side the mountaineers supplied Israel stra\ge that a book of this description should with bread and water, just as they supply be already in existence, we must remember the pilgrim caravans at the present day. that amongst the multitude of Israel there That they exacted payment for what they must in the nature of things have been some supplied "as perfectly reasonable : no one "poets " in the then acceptation of the could expect a poor people to feed a nation word. Some songs thc:re must have been, of two million souls, however nearly related, and those songs would be mainly inspired by for nothing. Oboth has been identified with the excitement and triumph of the final the modern halting-place of el-Ahsa, on the marches. The first flush of a new national pilgrim route above mentioned, on the life achieving its first victories over the ground of supposed similarity in the mean- national foe always finds expression in songs ing of the names ; but the true rendering or and odes. It is abundantly evident from the Oboth is doubtful (see on Levit. :rix. 31), and, foregoing narrative that writing of some sort apart from that, any such similarity of mean- we.s in common use at lea.et o.mong the ing is too vague and slight a ground for any leaders of Israel (see on eh. x:i. 26), and they argument to be built upon. would not have thought it beneath them to Ver. 11.-And pitched at Ije-abarim.. collect these spontaneous effusions of a nation Jje ('~.l-1), or Ijm (Cl''.l,I), as it is called in eh. just awaking to the poetry of its own ex- :x:x:xiii. 45, signifies "heaps" or "rniDs." istence. The archaic character of the frag- Abarim is a word of somewhat doubtful ments preserved in this chapter, which makes meaning, best rendered "ridges" or "ranges." them sound so foreign to our ears, is a strong It was apparently applied to the whole of testimony to their genuineness. It is hardly Perrea in later times (cf. Jer. xxii. 20, "pas- credible that any one of a later generation sages"), but in the Pentatench is con.fined should have cared either to compose or to else"here to the ranges facing Jericho. quote snatches of song which, like dried These "ruinous heaps of the ranges" lay to flowers, have lost everything but scientific the east of Moab, along the desert side of value in being detached from the soil which "hlch Israel "as now marching, still going gave them birth. What he did in the Bed north"ards : they cannot be identified. Sea, and in the brooks of Amon. Rather, "Vaheb in whirlwind, and the brooks of Ver. 12.-Pitched in the valley of Zarecl. Amon." The strophe e.s cited here has Rather, "in the brook of Zered." "T:n Sm=?. neither nominative nor verb, and the sense Perhaps the upper part of the Wady Kerek, can only be conjecturally restored. :li:Jl is "hich flows westwards into the Salt Sea almost certainly a proper name, although of (see on Dent. ii. 13). an unknown place. i1~,c~ is also considered Ver. 13.-Pitched on the other side of by many a.s the name of ·a locality "in Sn- Arnon. The Arnon wa.s without doubt the phah;" it occurs, however, in Nahum i. 3 in stream or torrent now known as the Wady the sense given above, and indeed it is not M8jeb, which breaks its way down to the at all a rare word in Job, Proverbs, and Salt Sea through a precipitone ravine. It the Prophets ; it seems best, therefore, to must have been in the upper part of its give it the same meaning here. course, in the desert uplands, that the Ver. 16. -And at the stream of the brooks. Israelites crossed it ; and this both because the passage lower down is extremely difficult, Rather, "and the pouring ("1~1$1) of the and also because they were keeping well to brooks," i. e. the slope of the watershed. the eastward of Moabitiah territory up to A:t. ,~ is e.n archaic form of i 111, a city. this point. It is not certain which side of The same place is called Ar Moab in ver. 28. the stream is intended by "the other side," It was situate on the Amon somewhat lower because the force of these expressions depends down than where the Israelites crossed its as often upon the point of view of the writer "brooks." The peculiarity of the site, "in ~s of the reader. It would appear from Dent. the midst of the river" (Josh. xiii. 9, cf. tl. 26 that Israel remained at this spot until Dent. ii. 36), and extensive ruins, have the emba.ssage to Bihon had returned. That enabled travellers to identify the spot _on ~ometh out of the coaata of the Amoritea, which it stood at the junction of the M8Jeb t. e. the Amon, or perhaps one of its con- (Amon) and Lejum (Nahaliel, ver. 19). It fluents which comes down from the north- is uncertain whether the Greeks gave the eaat. For Amon is the border of 11toab. It name of Arropolis, e.s Jerome asserts, to Ar, on. xxr. 10-x:m. 1.J THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 281