Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 2:24–end
God having tried the self-denial of his people in forbidding them to meddle with the Moabites and Ammonites, and they having quietly passed by those rich countries, and, though superior in number, not made any attack upon them, here he recompenses them for their obedience by giving them possession of the country of Sihon king of the Amorites. If we forbear what God forbids, we shall receive what he promises, and shall be no losers at last by our obedience, though it may seem for the present to be to our loss. Wrong not others, and God shall right thee.
I. God gives them commission to seize upon the country of Sihon king of Heshbon, Deu 2:24, Deu 2:25. This was then God's way of disposing of…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 2:24
Rise ye up . . . and pass over the river Arnon--At its mouth, this stream is eighty-two feet wide and four deep. It flows in a channel banked by perpendicular cliffs of sandstone. At the date of the Israelitish migration to the east of the Jordan, the whole of the fine country lying between the Arnon and the Jabbok including the mountainous tract of Gilead, had been seized by the Amorites, who, being one of the nations doomed to destruction (see Deu 7:2; Deu 20:16), were utterly exterminated. Their country fell by right of conquest into the hands of the Israelites. Moses, however, considering this doom as referring solely to the Amorite possessions west of Jordan, sent a pacific message to S…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Deuteronomy 2:37
Only unto the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not,.... Which was then in their possession; otherwise what Sihon had took away from them, that the children of Israel came into and enjoyed, as before observed, Deuteronomy 2:19.
nor unto any place of the river Jabbok; any town or city situated on this river, which was the border of the children of Ammon, Deuteronomy 3:16; see Gill on Genesis 32:22,
nor unto the cities in the mountains; much less did they penetrate into the innermost parts of their country, the mountainous part thereof, and the cities there:
nor unto whatsoever the Lord our God forbad us: whether in Edom, Moab, or Ammon, particularly the latter, of which he is more…
