Judges 11:21-25
Judges 11:21
And
the LORD God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of
Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites,
the inhabitants of that country.
Since
Sihon chose to go to war against the Israelites, he suffered loss against them
and as a result Israel had possessed the land of the Amorites by means of
winning a legal battle against them.
1 When the LORD thy God shall
bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out
many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites,
and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites,
seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt
smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
shew mercy unto them: (Deuteronomy
7:1-2, KJV) Back in Deuteronomy
7, the takeover of the land was already prophesied through Moses.
The Amorites were one of the seven nations the Lord wanted Israel to
destroy upon taking the land.
Judges 11:22
And
they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and
from the wilderness even unto Jordan.
Once
the battle against Sihon was completed, the Israelites now possessed the coasts
of the Amorites. The distance from
the River Arnon to the River Jabbok was about 50 miles (80 km) and it was on
the coast of the Dead Sea and along the banks of the Jordan northward.
Then they also possessed the land east of the Jordan River into the
wilderness of Arabia.
Judges 11:23
So
now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people
Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?
The
question is now posed to the king that it was the Lord God of Israel who had
prophesied the victory and then brought it to pass and now since it was promised
to the children of Israel, why then do you believe it is yours to possess?
Judges 11:24
Wilt
not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So
whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we
possess.
Then
the king is given a question and a declarative statement.
He is asked that why do you not possess what your god Chemosh will give
you in victory? Then he gives the
reality statement that whatever the Lord God of Israel allows them to possess,
they will possess. Chemosh was the
chief god of the Ammonites and Moabites.
He was basically telling them that if the Ammonites had claimed lands
they took in the name of their god, then Israel had the right to claim lands in
the name of the Lord God.
Judges 11:25
And
now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he
ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them,