Bible Strands
Numbers 21:25
Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its villages.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrative follows Israel’s military defeat of King Sihon of the Amorites and the seizure of his territory. The verse records the immediate transition from battlefield victory to the administrative act of taking and settling the captured cities.
The words — The Hebrew uses וַיִּקַּח (wa-yiqqaḥ) for “and took” to mark the seizure of the cities, followed by וַיֵּשֶׁב (wa-yēšeḇ) for “and dwelt” to denote permanent occupation. These consecutive verbs structure the narrative from military capture to territorial possession.
The thread — This pattern of seizing and occupying conquered territory reappears in Numbers 21:31 and Numbers 32:33, where the same land is distributed to the tribes of Reuben and Gad. The motif of displaced inhabitants replacing prior occupants also echoes the account in Deuteronomy 2:12.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition of the concrete outcome of military conquest: defeated territory is systematically transferred and inhabited by the victor. It establishes the factual and legal basis for Israel’s subsequent settlement in the region.
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 Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof.
Cross-references
- Numbers 21:31 So Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.
- Numbers 32:33 So Moses gave to the Gadites, to the Reubenites, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan—the land including its cities and the territory surrounding them.
- Deuteronomy 2:12 The Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land that the LORD gave them as their possession.)
- Song of Solomon 7:4 Your neck is like a tower made of ivory; your eyes are like the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim; your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, facing toward Damascus.
- Isaiah 15:4 Heshbon and Elealeh cry out; their voices are heard as far as Jahaz. Therefore the soldiers of Moab cry out; their souls tremble within.
- Isaiah 16:8 For the fields of Heshbon have withered, along with the grapevines of Sibmah. The rulers of the nations have trampled its choicest vines, which had reached as far as Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots had spread out and passed over the sea.
- Jeremiah 48:2 There is no longer praise for Moab; in Heshbon they devise evil against her: ‘Come, let us cut her off from nationhood.’ You too, O people of Madmen, will be silenced; the sword will pursue you.
- Jeremiah 48:34 There is a cry from Heshbon to Elealeh; they raise their voices to Jahaz, from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim have dried up.
- Jeremiah 48:45 “Those who flee will stand helpless in Heshbon’s shadow, because fire has gone forth from Heshbon and a flame from within Sihon. It devours the foreheads of Moab and the skulls of the sons of tumult.
- Ezekiel 16:46 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters to your north; and your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters to your south.