Joshua 12:1

1 These are the kings east of the Jordan River who had been killed by the Israelites and whose land was taken. Their territory extended from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon and included all the land east of the Jordan Valley.

Joshua 12:1 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 12:1

Now these [are] the kings of the land which the children of
Israel smote
In the days of Moses, as Jarchi remarks, and as it clearly appears from what follows:

and possessed, their land on the other side Jordan toward the rising
of the sun;
on the east of the land of Canaan:

from the river Arnon unto the mount Hermon, and all the plain on the
east;
Arnon was the border of Moab between them and the Amorites, ( Numbers 21:13 ) ; and from hence to Hermon, a mountain adjoining to Lebanon, lay the country of the two kings of the Amorites after mentioned, ( Deuteronomy 3:8 Deuteronomy 3:9 ) ; and the plain on the east were the plains of Moab, which lay to the east of Jordan.

Joshua 12:1 In-Context

1 These are the kings east of the Jordan River who had been killed by the Israelites and whose land was taken. Their territory extended from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon and included all the land east of the Jordan Valley.

2 King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, was defeated. His kingdom included Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon Gorge, and extended from the middle of the Arnon Gorge to the Jabbok River, which serves as a border for the Ammonites. This territory included the southern half of the territory of Gilead.

3 Sihon also controlled the Jordan Valley and regions to the east—from as far north as the Sea of Galilee to as far south as the Dead Sea, including the road to Beth-jeshimoth and southward to the slopes of Pisgah.

4 King Og of Bashan, the last of the Rephaites, lived at Ashtaroth and Edrei.

5 He ruled a territory stretching from Mount Hermon to Salecah in the north and to all of Bashan in the east, and westward to the borders of the kingdoms of Geshur and Maacah. This territory included the northern half of Gilead, as far as the boundary of King Sihon of Heshbon.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew the Arabah; also in 12:3, 8 .