CONQUEST OF THE KINGDOM OF SIHON.
Sihon and his people were Amorites, who had settled on the east of the Jordan in Gilead. But though not included in the original promise to Abraham, God had assigned this territory to the Israelites; and, therefore, he commanded the people under Moses to cross the Amen, and take the first step towards possessing the Promised Land, by assailing Sihon, King of Heshbon, assuring them that from that day he would "put the dread and fear of them upon all nations under the whole heaven," that is, all nations, wherever placed, to whom the fame of the Israelites should come (comp. Exodus 23:27; Deuteronomy 11:16), so that on hearing thereof, they should tremble and writhe as in pain ( וְחָלוּ, comp. Isaiah 13:8). Moses, however, in the first instance, sent a message of peace to Sihon, proposing to pass through his territory on the same terms as he had made with the Moabites and Edomites, traveling by the highway, and paying for such provisions as his followers required. But this Sihon refused, and came out against Israel, with all his people, to battle. The issue was that he was utterly discomfited; all his towns were captured, he and all his people utterly destroyed, and the cattle and spoil of the whole country taken for booty. Israel thus became possessed of that entire territory, though it did not lie within the bounds of the land promised by God to Abraham, which was the reason, probably, why Moses made overtures of peace to Sihon, and would have passed through his country amicably, had he been permitted; but comp. Deuteronomy 20:10.