The Conquest of the Amorites, as in Numbers 21:25, by James Tissot, 1903
Inventing the Mythic Amorite Kingdom of Sihon
To avoid saying that Israel conquered the territory of their Moabite cousins, and that Reuben and Gad may once have been Moabite tribes, the Torah claims that when the Israelites arrived, the land was occupied by Amorites and ruled by King Sihon.
Published: July 16, 2015
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
It also comes into tension with the Deuteronomistic idea that the law becomes operative west of the Jordan.
For more on the issue of the Transjordanian tribes in the Bible, and speculation on what period of time this dispute reflects, see discussion in, Itamar Kislev, על סף הארץ המובטחת [On the Threshold of the Promised Land] (Jerusalem: Magness, 2013).
Martin Noth claims that Israelite tribes, and Gad in particular, participated in cultic gatherings at Baal Peor, the reviled site of miscegenation in Numbers 25:1-3. “As a boundary sanctuary to which the ‘peoples’ gathered, the sanctuary of Baal Peor enjoyed widespread respect and esteem, not only among the narrower circles of the tribe of Gad in the north or on the other hand the Moabites who inhabited the southern region, but also among the nomadic Midianites of the eastern wilderness and the Israelite tribes living opposite in the country of West Jordan.” Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, 74-75.
“The Amorites may be regarded as a deuteronomistic and late Judahite designation for the supposed conquered populations in both eastern and western regions… Although the term ‘Amorite’ is sometimes considered universally late and Judahite, the word itself is ancient and deeply embedded in the identities of Syrian tribal peoples of the second millennium,” Fleming, The Legacy of Israel, 124-125. Editor’s note: For more in the fluidity of identities in this region as connected with Gad, see Yigal Levin, “Dibon-Gad Between the Torah and the Mesha Stele,” TheTorah (2019); Aaron Koller, “The Tribe of Gad and The Mesha Stele,” TheTorah (2013).
For the historical debates on settlement in Transjordan, see Robert G. Boling, The Early Biblical Community in Transjordan (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1988).
Editor’s note: For a similar analysis, understanding the invention of Sihon as a way of backing up Israel’s claim in a land dispute with Moab, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “War at Yahatz: The Torah Versus the Mesha Stele,” TheTorah (2015).
Editor’s note: For a discussion of the geographic identity of this stream, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Wadi Zered,” TheTorah (2021).
That the claim is backed up assiduously in the genres of poetry (Num 21:27-30; Ps 135:11-12, 136:19-22), historical reporting (Num 21:21-26; Deut 2:24-36, 4:46-49; Josh 24:8; Judg 11:18-22; Neh 9:22), and narrative mapping (Josh 12:2-5, 13:8-12, 21, 27) adds to my suspicion.
Editor’s note: For an archaeological discussion of Hesbon, see Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, “When Did “Fire Go Forth from Heshbon”?” TheTorah (2017); Israel Finkelstein and Thomas Römer, “North Israelite Memories of the Transjordan and the Mesha Inscription,” TheTorah (2018).
Geographic rhetoric like the phrase “from Arnon to the Jabbok” also participates in the minimization of Ammonite presence. See John Bartlett, “Sihon and Og, Kings of the Amorites,” Vetus Testamentum 20 (1970): 257-77.
This myth may well be a variant of the daughters of Lot story in Genesis 13. Ottosson, Gilead, 92.
See Maxwell Miller, “The Israelite Journey Through (Around) Moab and Moabite Toponymy,” Journal of Biblical Literature108 (1989): 578.
On Israel’s wilderness journey as a process of national development, see Ilana Pardes, The Biography of Ancient Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). For the defeat of giants as an image of overcoming parents, see Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 27.
Editor’s note: For more on Og the giant, see Laura Quick, “Og, King of Bashan: Underworld Ruler or Ancient Giant?” TheTorah (2020).
For example, the lists of cities said to be built by Gad and Reuben (Num 32:34-36, 37-38; Josh 13:15-28) are commonly attributed to the Moabites; this is the case with Dibon (Isa 12:2; Jer 48:18, 22) and Aroer (Judg 11:26; Jer 48:19). In Joshua 13:25 Aroer belongs to “the land of the Ammonites” at the same time that it is granted by Moses to the tribe of Gad (13:24). Judges 11:33 reports Jephthah’s defeat of the Aroer Ammonites. “While Num 32.34 attributes Aroer to Gad, 1Chron 5:8 makes it a possession of a descendant of Reuben.” Burton MacDonald, “East of the Jordan”: Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research), 2000, 133, 134, 146. The building of some of these very towns falls among the claims of Mesha the King of Moab, as inscribed in the Mesha Inscription. Tracing his own roots to Dibon, Mesha boasts that “I built Ba‘al Ma‘on and I made in it a reservoir and I built Qiryatën” (9-10) and “I myself built ‘Aro‘er and I myself made the highway through the Arnon” (26). These projects occur in the wake of Israelite defeat after all “the men of Gad” (10) are killed and all Israelites in Nebo eradicated (14-17). As the biblical writers recognize the antiquity of Moabite claims in the battle reports with Sihon, so the Mesha Inscription confesses “now the men of Gad (had) dwelt in the land of ‘Atarot from of old and the King of Israel built for (them) ‘Atarot” (10). An important difference between biblical texts and the Mesha Inscription arises from the fact that Mesha prides himself on replacing Israel where the Bible inserts buffer foes between Israel and Moab.
Dina Stein, “Believing Is Seeing: A Reading of Bab Bathra 73a-75b,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 17(1999), 22 (Hebrew).
Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979, 172.
