1 And it came to the ears of the Canaanite, the king of Arad, living in the South, that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, and he came out against them and took some of them prisoners. 2 Then Israel made an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give up this people into my hands, then I will send complete destruction on all their towns. 3 And the Lord, in answer to the voice of Israel, gave the Canaanites up to them; and they put them and their towns completely to destruction: and that place was named Hormah. 4 Then they went on from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, going round the land of Edom: and the spirit of the people was overcome with weariness on the way. 5 And crying out against God and against Moses, they said, Why have you taken us out of Egypt to come to our death in the waste land? For there is no bread and no water, and this poor bread is disgusting to us. 6 Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel. 7 Then the people came to Moses and said, We have done wrong in crying out against the Lord and against you: make prayer to the Lord to take away the snakes from us. So Moses made prayer for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, Make an image of a snake and put it on a rod, and anyone who has been wounded by the snakes, looking on it will be made well. 9 So Moses made a snake of brass and put it on a rod; and anyone who had a snakebite, after looking on the snake of brass, was made well. 10 Then the children of Israel went on and put up their tents in Oboth. 11 And journeying on again from Oboth, they put up their tents in Iye-abarim, in the waste land before Moab looking east. 12 And moving on from there, they put up their tents in the valley of Zered. 13 From there they went on and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon, which is on the waste land at the edge of the land of the Amorites; for the Arnon is the line of division between Moab and the Amorites: 14 As it says in the book of the Wars of the Lord, Vaheb in Suphah, and the valley of the Amon; 15 The slope of the valleys going down to the tents of Ar and touching the edge of Moab. 16 From there they went on to Beer, the water-spring of which the Lord said to Moses, Make the people come together and I will give them water. 17 Then Israel gave voice to this song: Come up, O water-spring, let us make a song to it: 18 The fountain made by the chiefs, made deep by the great ones of the people, with the law-givers' rod, and with their sticks. Then from the waste land they went on to Mattanah: 19 And from Mattanah to Nahaliel: and from Nahaliel to Bamoth: 20 And from Bamoth to the valley in the open country of Moab, and to the top of Pisgah looking over Jeshimon. 21 And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, 22 Let me go through your land: we will not go into field or vine-garden, or take the water of the springs; we will go by the highway till we have gone past the limits of your land. 23 And Sihon would not let Israel go through his land; but got all his people together and went out against Israel into the waste land, as far as Jahaz, to make war on Israel. 24 But Israel overcame him, and took all his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the country of the children of Ammon, for the country of the children of Ammon was strongly armed. 25 And Israel took all their towns, living in Heshbon and all the towns and small places of the Amorites. 26 For Heshbon was the town of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had made war against an earlier king of Moab and taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon. 27 So the makers of wise sayings say, Come to Heshbon, building up the town of Sihon and making it strong: 28 For a fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the town of Sihon: for the destruction of Ar in Moab, and the lords of the high places of the Arnon. 29 Sorrow is yours, O Moab! Destruction is your fate, O people of Chemosh: his sons have gone in flight, and his daughters are prisoners, in the hands of Sihon, king of the Amorites. 30 They are wounded with our arrows; destruction has come on Heshbon, even to Dibon; and we have made the land waste as far as Nophah, stretching out to Medeba. 31 So Israel put up their tents in the land of the Amorites. 32 And Moses sent men secretly to Jazer, and they took its towns, driving out the Amorites who were living there. 33 Then turning they went up by the way of Bashan; and Og, king of Bashan, went out against them with all his people, to the fight at Edrei. 34 And the Lord said to Moses, Have no fear of him: for I have given him up into your hands, with all his people and his land; do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, at Heshbon. 35 So they overcame him and his sons and his people, driving them all out: and they took his land for their heritage.
Numbers · Bible in Basic English
Numbers 21 Bible in Basic English
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
Moses
Drawn from the Nile, he led Israel out of Egypt and received God's Law.
Cited in the guide: Exodus 2–Deuteronomy 34
Og
The king of Bashan, last of the remnant of the Rephaim, who came out against Israel at Edrei and was struck down with his sons and his whole army.
Cited in the guide: Numbers 21:33–35; Deuteronomy 3:1; Deuteronomy 3:11
Sihon
The Amorite king who reigned in Heshbon, refused to let Israel pass through his land, fought Israel at Jahaz, and lost his territory from the Arnon to the Jabbok.
Cited in the guide: Numbers 21:21; Numbers 21:23–24; Deuteronomy 2:26
Cross references (32)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Numbers 33:40; Judges 1:16; Joshua 12:14; Joshua 7:5; Numbers 14:45
- 2 Judges 11:30; Genesis 28:20; 1 Samuel 1:11; Joshua 6:26; 2 Samuel 15:7–8
- 3 Numbers 14:45; Deuteronomy 1:44; Psalm 91:15; Psalm 102:17; Psalm 10:17
- 4 Exodus 6:9; Judges 11:18; Acts 14:22; Numbers 32:7; Numbers 32:9
- 5 Psalm 78:19; Exodus 17:2–3; Numbers 16:41; Numbers 16:13–14; Exodus 14:11
- 6 1 Corinthians 10:9; Deuteronomy 8:15; Jeremiah 8:17; Amos 9:3–4; Isaiah 30:6
- 7 Acts 8:24; Psalm 78:34; Exodus 8:8; Numbers 11:2; Exodus 8:28
- 8 John 3:14; Psalm 106:43–45; Psalm 145:8
- 9 John 3:14–15; Hebrews 12:2; John 6:40; 2 Kings 18:4; John 12:32
- 10 Numbers 33:43–45
- 12 Deuteronomy 2:13–14
- 13 Judges 11:18; Numbers 22:36; Isaiah 16:2; Numbers 21:14; Jeremiah 48:20
- 14 Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18
- 15 Numbers 21:28; Deuteronomy 2:18; Deuteronomy 2:9; Deuteronomy 2:29; Isaiah 15:1
- 16 Numbers 20:8; Isaiah 41:17–18; Isaiah 12:3; Judges 9:21; Revelation 22:17
- 17 Psalm 105:2; Judges 5:1; Psalm 106:12; James 5:13; Isaiah 12:1–2
- 18 Isaiah 33:22; Deuteronomy 33:4; Deuteronomy 5:31; James 4:12; John 1:17
- 20 Numbers 23:28; Numbers 23:14; Numbers 22:1; Numbers 33:49–50; Numbers 26:63
- 21 Deuteronomy 2:26–28; Judges 11:19–21; Numbers 20:14–19
- 22 Numbers 20:17
- 23 Judges 11:20; Deuteronomy 29:7–8; Jeremiah 48:34; Numbers 20:21; Deuteronomy 2:30–32
- 24 Amos 2:9; Nehemiah 9:22; Genesis 32:22; Joshua 24:8; Psalm 136:19
- 25 Deuteronomy 2:12; Ezekiel 16:53; Jeremiah 48:34; Numbers 21:31; Song of Songs 7:4
- 27 Isaiah 14:4; Habakkuk 2:6; Numbers 21:14
- 28 Numbers 21:15; Jeremiah 48:45–46; Amos 2:2; Numbers 22:41; Amos 1:14
- 29 2 Kings 23:13; Judges 11:24; Jeremiah 48:46; 1 Kings 11:7; 1 Kings 11:33
- 30 Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:18; Jeremiah 48:22; Numbers 32:34; Joshua 13:17
- 31 Deuteronomy 3:16–17; Joshua 12:1–6; Numbers 32:33–42; Joshua 13:8–12
- 32 Jeremiah 48:32; Numbers 32:1; Numbers 32:35; Numbers 32:3; Isaiah 16:8–9
- 33 Joshua 13:12; Deuteronomy 1:4; Deuteronomy 29:7; Deuteronomy 3:1–6; Numbers 32:33
- 34 Psalm 135:10–11; Numbers 21:24–25; Joshua 8:7; Deuteronomy 3:2–3; Judges 11:30
- 35 Deuteronomy 3:3–17; Joshua 12:4–6; Joshua 13:12; Psalm 135:10–12; Deuteronomy 29:7–8
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
… that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, "If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby." And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is …
This was done: men were bitten; they looked and were healed. What are the biting serpents?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 7 (1888)
This was the figure which Moses completed by fixing the serpent to a cross, that whoso had been bitten by the living serpent, and looked to the brasen serpent, might be saved by believing.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)