(cf. Numbers 21:23).—Jahaz ( יַהַץ, downtrodden), elsewhere Jahazah ( יַהְצָה), a city of Moab, afterwards assigned to the tribe of Reuben, and allotted to the priests (Joshua 13:18; Joshua 21:36; 1 Chronicles 6:63; Isaiah 15:4; Jeremiah 48:34).
(cf. Numbers 22:24, Numbers 22:25; Numbers 32:34, Numbers 32:35, etc.).—And utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones …. we left none to remain. As the Amorites came out of Canaan, they belonged to the race which God had doomed to destruction. The Israelites, therefore, had a commission to extirpate them. Utterly destroyed; literally, devoted or placed under a ban, which of course implied utter destruction. The men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city; literally, every city of men and women and little children. The phrase "city of men" can hardly mean, as Rosenmüller affirms, "men of a city;" the hypallage here would be too violent. It rather means "a peopled city," "a city inhabited by men." The word rendered "men" ( מְתִים) does not designate males as opposed to females, but is a designation of human beings in general (cf. Job 11:3; Job 24:12 [Hebrews 20:48]; 31:31; Psalms 26:4, "vain persons," Authorized Version, literally, men of emptiness or of falsehood, etc.). The passage might be rendered, every inhabited city, even the women and the little children.