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Numbers 21

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Numbers 21 Overview

Numbers 21 records warfare, judgment, healing, travel, and victory. After Israel defeats the Canaanite king of Arad, renewed complaining brings fiery serpents. The people confess their sin, Moses intercedes, and God commands a brazen serpent to be lifted up so that anyone bitten may look and live. Israel then moves north and east, sings over a well, requests passage from Sihon, defeats the Amorites, and conquers Og of Bashan. The generation once afraid of Canaan now begins experiencing victory under God.

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21Chapter

35Verses

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Before you read Numbers 21

Coming from

Numbers 20 ended with Aaron’s death and Eleazar becoming high priest.

In this chapter

Israel wins battles, suffers the fiery-serpent judgment, receives God’s healing provision, and defeats Sihon and Og.

Leads into

Numbers 22 introduces Balak and Balaam as Moab tries to stop Israel through cursing rather than open battle.

Key understandingExplore deeper

This chapter mixes several scenes because Israel is now moving toward the land from the east. The fiery-serpent episode is a temporal judgment in the wilderness: bitten Israelites live when they look at the brazen serpent God commanded Moses to raise. John 3:14-15 later gives this event an explicit gospel comparison, so the connection to Christ is established by Scripture rather than invented typology. The later victories over Sihon and Og are also crucial because they give Israel control east of Jordan and set the stage for Balak's fear in Numbers 22.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

Repeated complaining continues to bring serious consequences.

Truth 2

Confession and intercession are followed by a God-provided means of healing.

Truth 3

The bitten Israelite lives by looking at the lifted serpent as God commands.

Truth 4

Victories over Sihon and Og give Israel territory east of Jordan and demonstrate God’s power over formidable kings.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

John 3:14–15 explicitly compares Moses lifting up the serpent with the Son of man being lifted up so believers may have eternal life.

Connection 2

Deuteronomy 2–3 retells the victories over Sihon and Og.

Connection 3

2 Kings 18:4 later records Hezekiah destroying the brazen serpent because Israel had turned it into an idol.

Connection 4

Psalm 135 celebrates God’s defeat of Sihon and Og.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

The brazen serpent saves from physical death in this wilderness event; Jesus gives the image its explicit gospel application in John 3.

Keep this clear 2

The object itself had no inherent power, as later idolatry of it demonstrates.

Keep this clear 3

Israel’s wars here belong to a specific covenant and conquest setting, not a general authorization for religious warfare.

Read Numbers 21 watching for…

The cycle of complaint, judgment, confession, and provision.

The simple command to look at the serpent.

The song at the well.

The defeats of Sihon and Og.

Chapter outline4 sections

1-3Arad fights Israel and is defeated 4-9Fiery serpents come and the brasen serpent is lifted up 10-20Israel journeys onward and receives water 21-35Israel defeats Sihon and Og and takes their land

And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners.

And Israel vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.

And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah.

And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in Oboth.

And they journeyed from Oboth, and pitched at Ijeabarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrising.

From thence they removed, and pitched in the valley of Zared.

From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites: for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD, What he did in the Red sea, and in the brooks of Arnon,

And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.

And from thence they went to Beer: that is the well whereof the LORD spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water.

Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it:

The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah:

And from Mattanah to Nahaliel: and from Nahaliel to Bamoth:

And from Bamoth in the valley, that is in the country of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looketh toward Jeshimon.

And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: but we will go along by the king's high way, until we be past thy borders.

And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness: and he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.

And Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof.

For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.

Wherefore they that speak in proverbs say, Come into Heshbon, let the city of Sihon be built and prepared:

For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon.

Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon king of the Amorites.

We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto Dibon, and we have laid them waste even unto Nophah, which reacheth unto Medeba.

Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.

And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, and drove out the Amorites that were there.

And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land.