Bible Strands
Numbers 21:15
even the slopes of the wadis that extend to the site of Ar and lie along the border of Moab.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator quotes the "Book of the Wars of the LORD" to mark Israel's advance past the Arnon toward Moab. The passage functions as a geographical footnote during a military march, with no recorded dialogue.
The words — וְ/אֶ֙שֶׁד֙ (ve./'E.shed) translates literally as "and the slope," while נָטָ֖ה (na.Tah) means "it extends." These terms define the topographical reach of the wadis toward Ar.
The thread — This boundary marker appears in Numbers 21:28, which references the "rulers of Arnon’s heights," and Deuteronomy 2:18, where Israel is told to cross "the border of Moab at Ar."
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to track how conquest narratives anchor military movements to specific terrain. It establishes Ar as a territorial threshold that separates Israel's advance from Moab's domain.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.
Cross-references
- Numbers 21:28 For a fire went out from Heshbon, a blaze from the city of Sihon. It consumed Ar of Moab, the rulers of Arnon’s heights.
- Deuteronomy 2:9 Then the LORD said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.”
- Deuteronomy 2:18 “Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar.
- Deuteronomy 2:29 just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for us, until we cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving us.”
- Isaiah 15:1 This is the burden against Moab: Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is devastated, destroyed in a night!