Num 21.1-35 will tell us about a battle with the Canaanites; the brazen serpent; several halting places; victories over the Amorites; a song of victory; and the defeat of Og king of Bashan.
v 1…When the Canaanite, the king of Arad (a royal city) who lived in the Negev (south), heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim (“of the spies” meaning the way the spies went 38 years prior), then he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive.
v 2…So Israel made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy (devote a place to destruction, like at Jericho-Josh 6.21) their cities.”
v 3…And the Lord heard the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah (has the same root as “cherem” or a place doomed).
v 4…Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea (the eastern gulf of Aqaba), to go around the land of Edom (they had to go back to go around Edom); and the people became impatient because of the journey.
v 5…And the people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness (Wadi Rum. For there is no food (no grain to make bread out of) and no water, and we loathe this miserable food (the manna).”
v 6…And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many of Israel died.
v 7…So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that he may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.
v 8…Then the Lord said, “Make a fiery (“saraph”; burning one) serpent and set it on a standard (“nes” and a term for the Messiah) and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it, he shall live (this is a type of the crucifixion of Yeshua-John 3.14).”
v 9…And Moses made a bronze (“nachoshet”) serpent (nachash) and set it on the standard, and it came about, that if a serpent (a type of sin-Gen 3) bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived (now when the people looked, they saw a serpent, or one cursed in Gen 3.14, but when God looked he saw the “saraph”, a burning one, a name for an angel called a “seraph”-Isa 6.1; all of this ties into John 3.14-16; to “live” we must be born again and the bronze serpent is a symbol for the crucifixion of Yeshua; he tells Nicodemus to “look to me when I am crucified and live” in John 3.14; when Yeshua was crucified, the people saw one cursed hanging on a tree, like the serpent, and how could that save anyone; but the Lord saw his son, his “saraph”, his sent one, his angel; the people were to look to him by faith, like in the wilderness; if they did, they would live; this remains true today, and one must look to the crucifixion of Yeshua like they were to look at the brazen serpent if they want to be born again and “live”; those that tell the Jewish people that they don’t need to look to Yeshua on a tree are like those who said in the wilderness, “We don’t need to look at that serpent on a pole to be healed from thes snake bites! This is ridiculous! If they didn’t, they died, and its the same with anyone who does not look to Yeshua; the people sinned by making the Golden Calf and its remedy was destruction; in Exo 32.20 it says Moses took it and burned it, ground it up and scattered it over the water, and made the people drink. Lack of faith in God in one case was seen by the image they made; in the case of the bronze serpent it was their faith in God that made the people look at the image; here is a scene that probably happened because it happens today; Moses has interceded for the people over the snake bites, and someone is bitten. a relative runs into his tent and says, “Moses says all we need to do is look at the serpent on a pole that the Lord told him to make as it passes by and you will be healed”; the sick one says, “What? Just look at it to be healed? That’s silly and stupid, that serpent is what bit me! Get me a doctor or someone who can help!” So he struggles with faith, or “emunah” which is action, in what God said. This is the question today; will we go with the word of God and what God told Moses? It is just that simple, and people don’t do it because they don’t understand this story; if they listened and obeyed, they lived, and if they didn’t they died; eschatologically, the bronze serpent is a picture of the abomination of desolation, and in 2 Kings 18.1-4 Hezekiah broke this into pieces, called the Nechushtan, because the people were burning incense to it and worshiping it as an idol, and this alludes to the fact that people have turned the crucifix into an idol and burn incense to it in worship, and the crucifix may be the abomination of desolation)
v 10. Now the sons of Israel moved out and camped at Oboth (“water or seas”; east of Edom).
v 11…And they journeyed from Oboth, and camped at Ijeabarim (ruins of Abarim), in the wilderness which is opposite Moah (seed of the father) to the east.
v 12…From there they set out and camped in Wadi Zered (brook Zered which flows into the Dead Sea).
v 13…From there they journeyed and camped on the other side of the Arnon (“rushing stream” and ,north of the Zered), which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the amorites, for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.
v 14…Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord (there is no further mention of this book in the Scriptures, and its seems to be a book where a record was kept about the wars of Yehovah by those who feared him; many books have been lost and this provides proof that there was a written record of these things in the time of Moses, but the Torah is not the result of this compilation otherwise Moses would have cited his sources as is done here), “Waheb (gift) in Suphah (whirlwind), and the walls of the Arnon (rushing stream),
v 15…and the slope of the wadis that extends to the site of Ar (“city” in Moab), and leans to the border of Moab (this is cited to show that what was taken from the Amorites was not in the possession of Moab when Israel took these areas, and it did no wrong to Moab).”
v 16…And from there they continued to Beer (“well town”), that is the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Assemble the people, that I may give them water (since they are away from the Arnon River and streams; the Lord will give them water).
v 17…Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! Sing to it (the well is a type of Yeshua-Isa 12.3)!
v 18…The well, which the leaders (princes) sank (dug), which the nobles of the people dug, with the scepter (by the order of Yehovah through Moses) and with their staffs (to mark out the shape of the well).” And from the wilderness they continued to Mattanah (gift of Yehovah),
v 19…and from Matanah to Nahaliel (torrents of God) and from Nahaliel to Bamoth (high places),
v 20…and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the land of Moab, at the top of Pisgah (at the foot of it, where it began), which overlooked Jeshimon (wasteland of Kedemoth-Deut 2.26).
v 21…Then Israel set messengers to Sihon (sweeping away), king of the Amorites (sayers, talkers), saying,
v 22…Let me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king’s highway (a public road running north) until we have passed through your border.”
v 23…But Sihon would not permit Israel to pass through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out against Israel in the wilderness, and came to Jahaz (trodden down) and fought against Israel (keep in mind that the places being named in these stories will play a role in eschatology in conjunction with the coming of Yeshua to Jerusalem, like the king’s highway, the Arnon in v 24, the Jabbok in v 24, Bashan in v 33 and Heshbon in v 27).
v 24…Then Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Amorite to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the border of the sons of Ammon was Jazer (strong).
v 25…And Israel took all these cities and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her villages.
v 26…For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorite, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his land, as far as the Arnon.
v 27…Therefore those who use proverbs say (victory song of the Amorites after they had taken the land from Moab), “Come to Heshbon! Let it be built! So let the city of Sihon be established.
v 28…For a fire went forth from Heshbon (after Sihon conquered it), a flame from the town of Sihon; it devoured Ar (city) of Moab, the dominant heights of the Arnon.
v 29…Woe to you (lamentations await you), O Moab! You are ruined, of people of Chemosh (the god of he Moabites)! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to an Amorite king, Sihon.
v 30…But we have cast them down, Heshbon is ruined as far as Dibon (wasting), then we have laid waste even to Nophah (blast), which reaches to Medeba (4 miles southeast of Heshbon).”
v 31…Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites (this was the beginning of the conquering of Canaan).
v 32…And Moses sent out to spy out (to go about on foot) Jazer, and they captured (not the spies, but Israel) its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.
v 33…Then they turned and went by the way of Bashan (Golan Heights today), and Og the king of Bashan went out with all his people, for battle at Edrei (good pasture-30 miles east of the sea of Galilee).
v 34…But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him (not only because of his giant nature-Deut 3.11; but also because of the walled cities there), for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him what you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
v 35…So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left of him; and they possessed his land.
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