Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 2:24-33 
Context2:24 Get up, make your way across Wadi Arnon. Look! I have already delivered over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, 1 and his land. Go ahead! Take it! Engage him in war! 2:25 This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth 2 with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach.” 3
2:26 Then I sent messengers from the Kedemoth 4 Desert to King Sihon of Heshbon with an offer of peace: 2:27 “Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the roadway. 5 I will not turn aside to the right or the left. 2:28 Sell me food for cash 6 so that I can eat and sell me water to drink. 7 Just allow me to go through on foot, 2:29 just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us.” 2:30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was unwilling to allow us to pass near him because the Lord our 8 God had made him obstinate 9 and stubborn 10 so that he might deliver him over to you 11 this very day. 2:31 The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.” 2:32 When Sihon and all his troops 12 emerged to encounter us in battle at Jahaz, 13 2:33 the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons 14 and everyone else. 15
1 sn Heshbon is the name of a prominent site (now Tell Hesba„n, about 7.5 mi [12 km] south southwest of Amman, Jordan). Sihon made it his capital after having driven Moab from the area and forced them south to the Arnon (Num 21:26-30). Heshbon is also mentioned in Deut 1:4.
2 tn Heb “under heaven” (so NIV, NRSV).
3 tn Heb “from before you.”
4 sn Kedemoth. This is probably Aleiyan, about 8 mi (13 km) north of the Arnon and between Dibon and Mattanah.
5 tn Heb “in the way in the way” (בַּדֶּרֶךְ בַּדֶּרֶךְ, baderekh baderekh). The repetition lays great stress on the idea of resolute determination to stick to the path. IBHS 116 §7.2.3c.
6 tn Heb “silver.”
7 tn Heb “and water for silver give to me so that I may drink.”
8 tc The translation follows the LXX in reading the first person pronoun. The MT, followed by many English versions, has a second person masculine singular pronoun, “your.”
9 tn Heb “hardened his spirit” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “made his spirit stubborn.”
10 tn Heb “made his heart obstinate” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “made his heart defiant.”
11 tn Heb “into your hand.”
12 tn Heb “people.”
13 sn Jahaz. This is probably Khirbet el-Medeiyineh. See J. Dearman, “The Levitical Cities of Reuben and Moabite Toponymy,” BASOR 276 (1984): 55-57.
14 tc The translation follows the Qere or marginal reading; the Kethib (consonantal text) has the singular, “his son.”
15 tn Heb “all his people.”
