Comentario sobre Números 21:13

מגבל האמרי The word גבול denotes boundary-line of (marking) the end of their frontier. Similar is the term the גבול of Moab (in this verse): it is an expression for extremity and end.

FOR ARNON IS THE BORDER OF MOAB, BETWEEN MOAB AND THE AMORITES. Arnon was a city which belonged to Moab, [located] near the end of the Amorite border and the beginning of the border of Moab, and it was situated on brooks that flowed through it.²⁵⁸Verse 14: and Arnon among the brooks.

מעבר ארנון...היוצא, in that region where the river Arnon borders the region where the desert starts.

The edge of [their] border. Rashi was obliged to explain that this refers to a border and is not in the sense of a territory [the word גבול ["border"] sometimes includes the territory enclosed by the border]. For if it was the territory of the Emorites then it could not be the territory of the Moavites, and if it was the territory of the Moavites then it could not be the territory of the Emorites. However a border can be a boundary for both.

V. 13. מעבר הארנון אשר וגו׳, das אשר bezieht sich auf עבר. Sie hatten das moabitische Gebiet umgangen und lagerten nun an der Nordseite des Arnon, an jener Seite, die den Wüstenstrich bildet, welcher vom emoritischen Gebiete ausgeht (Raschi). Sie betraten damit zuerst den Boden, der ihr Eigentum werden sollte, wie im Verfolg (V. 21 f.) erzählt wird.

ויחנו מעבר ארנון, “they encamped across the river Arnon. They encamped on the bank that used to belong to King Sichon after having made a detour around the land of Moav. They had not been allowed by G–d to cross the territory belonging to Moav at that time. They were only allowed to straddle its border, without crossing it. (Compare Judges, 11,17) where Yiftach recounts the history of the people’s wanderings. They had approached that spot coming from the east, leaving the land of Moav on their west, bordered by the territory that belonged to King Sichon.

ויחנו מעבר ארנון, “they encamped across from the river Arnon.” If the Torah had written instead: בעבר ארנון, this would have meant that they had had free choice where along the banks of the river Arnon to make camp. The letter מ in stead of the prefix ב, means that they had only been able to make camp on the part of the banks of that river which came from the boundary with the Emorites, as Rashi has explained.

מעבר ארנון ON THE OTHER SIDE OF ARNON — they travelled round the land of Moab along the whole of its southern and eastern sides until they came to the other side of the Arnon into the land of the Amorites on the north of the land of Moab.

כי ארנון גבול מואב, the border between the Emorite and Moav is a joint border only at that point where the river separates the two nations. The area where the Israelites had entered the territory of the Emorite was not anywhere near its boundary with Moav.

כי ארנון גבול מואב בין מואב ובין האמורי, “for the river Arnon was the border between Moav and the Emorite.” In practice this means that the river separated the borders from one another. Originally, both banks of the river were part of the land of Moav, but Sichon had conquered all the land on the north bank of that river. The Israelites took possession of all the formerly Moabite lands that Sichon had conquered from them. That land was no longer considered out of bounds to them when they came out of Egypt. G–d rearranges nations’ boundaries from time to time, as He sees fit. The respective rulers during such warfare who appear as winners or losers are pawns in His hands.

מעבר ארנון, where across from that river? The part in noman’s land, desert, where it had left the boundary of the territory belonging to the Emorites. Apparently, there was a small island in the middle of that river that afforded a relatively easy passage across the river, in a neutral area between the territory of the Emorites and that of Moav. This is what is referred to as Almon divlatayma in Numbers 33, 46. The river Arnon was the boundary between these two kingdoms.

היצא מגבל האמרי [ARNON WHICH IS IN THE WILDERNESS] THAT COMETH OUT OF THE BOUNDARY OF THE AMORITES — a strip of land jutted out from the territory of the Amorites — it belonged to the Amorites — and entered into the territory of Moab extending unto the Arnon which is the boundary of Moab. It was there that the Israelites encamped and thus they did not pass into the territory of Moab, כי ארנון גבול מואב, FOR ARNON IS THE BOUNDARY OF MOAB, and they did not grant them permission to pass through their land. And although Moses did not state this plainly, Jephtha plainly stated it], as Jephtha said, (Judges 11:17) "And in like manner he sent unto the king of Moab, out he would not permit him to pass through his territory”. Moses, however, made an allusion to it when he stated, (Deuteronomy 2:29) “As the children of Esau that dwell in Seir, and the Moabites that dwell in Ar, did unto me”. What was the case with these (the children of Esau)? They did not permit them to pass through their land, but they made them travel right round it! Similarly, too, Moab did!

כי ארנון גבול מואב בין מואב ובין האמורי, “for Arnon was the boundary between the Emorites and the Moabites.” In earlier times, the territory of Moav had extended in a westerly direction to the river Jordan and in a northerly direction as far as Mount Nebo, which used to be the boundary with the Kingdom of Sichon. The latter had conquered a large slice of the original kingdom of Moav, (which due to that fact had no longer been included in the Moabite territory G-d had put out of bounds to the Israelites). This has been documented in verse 26 of our chapter.