Ar Moab

As we will note later, in every case other than this verse, where the MT has Ar, the LXX reads something else.

See discussion in my, “Waheb in Suphah, the Forgotten Town in the Stream” (TheTorah 2020).

Although as will be seen later, I follow Israel Ben-Shem’s interpretation of Ar-Moab, I disagree with his interpretation here that the border is Wadi an-Nukhayla. See, Israel Ben-Shem, כיבוש עבר הירדן: עיון מקראי [The Conquest of Transjordan: A Biblical Study] (Tel Aviv: Student Union of Tel Aviv University, 1972), 58, map 7.

The Greek reads:

ὅτι πῦρ ἐξῆλθεν ἐξ Εσεβων φλὸξ ἐκ πόλεως Σηων καὶ κατέφαγεν ἕως Μωαβ καὶ κατέπιεν στήλας Αρνων

Naphtali H. Tur Sinai, פשוטו של מקרא [The Simple Meaning of Scripture] (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1967), 1.170.

Arnold Ehrlich suggests that instead of בליל “at night,” we should read here כליל, “entirely.” See Arnold Ehrlich, Randglossen zur Hebraischen Bibel: Textcritsches, Sprachliches, und Sachliches [Marginal Glosses on the Hebrew Bible: Textual, Linguistic, and Factual] (Liebzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1912), 4.57–58. This is also the reading supported in, Tur-Sinai, The Simple Meaning of Scripture, 3a.50.

See Israel Finkelstein and Thomas Römer, “North Israelite Memories of the Transjordan and the Mesha Inscription,” TheTorah (2018).

The Greek reads here:

νυκτὸς ἀπολεῖται ἡ Μωαβῖτις, νυκτὸς γὰρ ἀπολεῖται τὸ τεῖχος τῆς Μωαβίτιδος.

By night Moabitis will perish; for by night the wall of Moabitis will perish. (NETS)

The Greek translator misunderstands Qir as wall, the meaning of the word in Hebrew, not realizing it is the Moabite word for city, and probably a specific reference to the capital city. For our purposes, it should be noted that Ar is skipped over here. This could reflect the LXX’s Vorlage, but it may also be an example of a translator consciously avoiding an unfamiliar toponym. Nevertheless, in Deuteronomy 2, the LXX in always translates Ar with another toponym, whereas here, the verse is translated as if the whole phrase “Ar was sacked” simply isn’t there.

If the verse here is referring to a region, then Ar does make a good parallel, since Qir would be the region on the west and, as we shall see shortly, Ar on the east. The poetic picture would then depict Moab being destroyed entirely.

Ar appears three times in this chapter in both the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), but never in the Greek LXX’s translation. Different LXX manuscripts have different readings in Deutereonomy where the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch both read Ar. Codex Vaticanus reads Seir (Σηιρ), while Codex Alexandrinus reads Aroer (Αροηρ). Neither of these toponyms makes geographic or historiographic sense. Seir is the territory of the sons of Esau according to v. 5, and the Israelites just left it and are now farther north, in Moabite territory. Aroer, according to Deuteronomy, is not Moabite but lies in the territory of Sihon king of the Amorites, which is why the Israelites can conquer it. In any event, Aroer is a city that Israel would come to after crossing the Arnon, not before. It would seem that the translator of Deuteronomy was unfamiliar with the toponym Ar, and was attempting to correct it to something more familiar; both the Hebrew names שעיר and ערער contain the letters ayin and resh. Lack of familiarly with the toponym likely also explains the Peshitta text in v. 9, which simply skips the words את ער, reading מטל דלבני לוט יהבתה יורתנא “because to the sons of Lot I have assigned it as inheritance,” i.e., the land they are traversing. Strangely, neither BHS nor BHQ notes any variants for Ar in their apparatus here.

Whether Israel ever ruled the area between the Arnon and Wadi el-Wala/eth-Themed is unclear and was even a point of contention in ancient times. See discussion in my “War at Yahatz: The Torah Versus the Mesha Stele,” TheTorah (2015); Yigal Levin, “Dibon-gad: Between the Torah and the Mesha Stele,” TheTorah (2019).

See: Frank L. Koucky, “The Regional Environment,” in: Limes Arabicus Project 1980-1985, ed., S. Thomas Parker, British Archaeological Reports International Series 340 (Oxford 1987), 11–40 [p. 13].

See: Israel Ben-Shem, כיבוש עבר הירדן: עיון מקראי [The Conquest of Transjordan: A Biblical study] (Tel Aviv: Student Union of Tel Aviv University, 1972), 56, 118 [n. 48], maps 6–7.

See: J. Maxwell Miller, ed., Archaeological Survey of the Kerak Plateau, ASOR Archaeological Reports (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 1–3; Gerald L. Mattingly, “The Natural Environment of Central Moab,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan (=ADAJ) 27 (1983): 597–605.

See: Koucky, “The Regional Environment,” 15, map 4. Most of the biblical sites are in the northern part of this area.

See: Parker, Limes Arabicus Project, p. 62, fig. 28

This also works well with the quote from YHWH’s Battles (Num 21:15). The Moabite region immediately east of Wadi an-Nukhayla is sparsely settled, and becomes less and less settled as the area becomes more desert-like. At this point, nations stop claiming borders and ownership; in the biblical period, deserts were no man’s land. So the verse points out that the border covers only the settled portion of Ar.

Again, Codex Vaticinus reads Seir, and Codex Alexandrinus reads Aroer. (Again BHS and BHQ do not note any variants.) In this one case, Aroer is not impossible, but it would be saying that the Israelites are crossing over to Aroer, not that they have just traversed it, since Aroer is a city north of the Arnon, which guards one of its crossing points. In any event, Aroer is an impossible reading in vv. 9 and 29, and the fact that Vaticinus reads Seir here as well shows that the Greek translators were trying to make sense of an obscure term, with each choosing a different, more familiar option, not that the translator had Aroer in the Vorlage. The Peshitta here reads לתחומא דמואב ודער “the border of Moab and of Ar,” apparently understanding Ar as something other than Moab.

As I discuss in my “Waheb in Suphah, the Forgotten Town in the Stream” (TheTorah 2020), the Wilderness Highway crosses north at Wadi es-Sawaqa, an eastern tributary of the Arnon River.

In this case, all LXX witnesses read Aroer; as Seir was literally referenced as the previous toponym, the scribe responsible for Vaticanus had no choice but to go with Aroer here, since, as noted, the translator of LXX’s Deuteronomy never references Ar. The Syriac Peshitta here reads like the Hebrew text, ומואביה דיתבין בער, “and the Moabites who dwell in Ar.”