Israel’s History after the Exodus

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

Turn and set out on your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the Negev, by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

At that time I commanded you all the things that you were to do.

“Then we set out from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead of us, so that they may spy out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up, and the cities which we should enter.’

and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, on all of the road which you have walked until you came to this place.’

Yet in spite of all this, you did not trust the Lord your God,

For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wandering through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked anything.”’

Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.

Indeed, the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they all perished.

“So it came about, when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people,

“Then Sihon came out with all his people to meet us in battle at Jahaz.

And the Lord our God turned him over to us, and we defeated him with his sons and all his people.

So we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women, and children of every city. We left no survivor.

From Aroer which is on the edge of the Valley of Arnon and from the city which is in the valley, even to Gilead, there was no city that was too high for us; the Lord our God turned it all over to us.

Only you did not go near the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God had commanded us to avoid.

Conquests Recounted

“Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, king of Bashan, came out with all his people to meet us in battle at Edrei.

But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him and all his people and his land over to you; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’

So the Lord our God also handed over to us Og, king of Bashan, with all his people, and we struck them until no survivor was left.

We captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns.

But all the animals and the spoils of the cities we took as our plunder.

all the cities of the plateau, all Gilead, and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob. (As to all Bashan, it is called the land of Rephaim.

Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, that is, Bashan, and named it after his own name: Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.)