The Conquest of Sihon's Kingdom: A Literary Re-Examination

Author(s): John R. Bartlett

Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 97, No. 3 (Sep., 1978), pp. 347-351
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3266163
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JBL 97/3 (1978) 347-51

THE CONQUEST OF SIHON'S KINGDOM:

A LITERARY RE-EXAMINATION
JOHN R. BARTLETT
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

N HIS article "The Conquest of Sihon's Kingdom: A Literary

Examination" (JBL 91 [1972] 182-97) J. Van Seters examines the
literary relationships of Num 21:21-35, Deut 2:24-3:11, and Judg 11:19-26.
He concludes (p. 195) that
the writer-redactor of Num 21:21-35 built up his narrative by relying for vss. 21-25 on
deuteronomic sources such as Deut 2:26-37 and Judg 11:19-26 in a fashion similar to his
creation of the Edom episode in Num 20:14-21. He borrowed a taunt song against Moab,
vss. 27-30, which he reworked and fitted into his account with transition passages, vss. 26,
31. The episode in vs. 32 is a very cryptic and artificial account of the conquest of Jazer in
order to anticipate the settlement account of ch. 32. Finally the war against Og is taken from
only one deuteronomic account, Deut 3:1-7, with much less revision of detail.

He adds (p. 197) that

On the historical level the conquest of the kingdoms of Sihon and Og must be regardedwith
grave suspicion. The oldest accounts in the literary tradition are the rather late
deuteronomistic ones and they have a highly ideological character which make these
episodes historically untrustworthy.

Van Seters' major thesis is that Num 21:21-25 derives from conflation of
Deut 2:26-37 and Judg 11:19-26, and it is this section of his article (pp. 182-
92) that I wish to re-examine here. Van Seters argues from a number of
observations.
(1) All Num 21:21-25 is contained in the longer Deut 2:26-37 (p. 184).
(2) The Numbers passage differs from the Deuteronomy passage in that
the Numbers passage does not mention Moses, God, or divine intervention,
and in that it describes both conquest and settlement while the deuteronomic
passage limits itself to conquest (p. 184).
(3) Judg 11:19-26 is basically deuteronomistic in character, emphasizing
the divine intervention in events (p. 186).
So far, there is nothing that demands priority for the deuteronomic
passage. The second observation might suggest not that Numbers has
removed common deuteronomic traits but ratherthat Deuteronomy has used
the material of Numbers in a recognizable way.
Van Seters proceeds to raise points of greater substance.
(4) "On each of the points where Judges departs from Deuteronomy,

347
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 348 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Numbers also differs from Deuteronomy in the same way"(p. 186;Van Seters'
emphasis). Thus Numbers and Judges make Israel, and Deuteronomy makes
Moses, the subject of the story; Numbers and Judges mention the Israelite
settlement of the region consequent upon its capture, while Deuteronomy
delays this. Van Seters argues that, while in the context of Judges 11 the use of
"Israel"and the mention of Israelite settlement are appropriate, in Numbers
they represent "a striking inconsistency with its context" and "a false
conclusion" respectively (p. 186). He therefore concludes that here Numbers is
using Deuteronomy and Judges.
VS. There are considerable difficulties in this argument. First, it is not clear
[1.] that the use of "Israel" in the Numbers passage represents "a striking
inconsistency with its context" and it is not clear that this use of "Israel"came
into the Numbers passage from Judges 11. The use of "Israel"in the book of
Numbers is interesting. The phrase most commonly used in Numbers to
denote the Israelites collectively is "the children of Israel,"and it is used with
great frequency. But in Num 20:14, 21 (twice); 21:1 (twice), 2, 3, 17, 21,23, 24,
25 (twice), 31; 22:2; 24:1, 2; 25:1, 3, 4, 5-that is, in the accounts of the
encounter with Edom, the destruction of the Canaanites, the incident at Beer,
the story of Sihon, the story of Balaam, and the beginning of the account of
Israel at Shittim-we find that the narrativesspeak of the activities of "Israel"
(with two exceptions in Num 20:19 and 22:1).' If the Numbers editor of the
Sihon story derived the use of "Israel"from Judges 11, then he seems to have
extended this use (on Van Seters' hypothesis) to a number of other stories
between Num 20:14 and 25:6. It seems more likely, however, that Judges 11
drew on the wide range of material available to him in Numbers than that
Numbers drew on Judges 11 and extended the use of "Israel"in this way to
other stories relating to this wilderness period. Jephthah's speech in Judg
11:14-26 contains what seems to be a resume of fuller material (compare, for
example, Judg 11:19-23 with the longer, more detailed account of Num
21:21-31, and note the brief allusion to the story of Balak in Judg 11:25). If the
Numbers account is based on Judg 11 and Deuteronomy, then we shall have
to find a new source for all the material in Numbers which does not appear in
Judges 11 or Deuteronomy.
Van Seters' second point under the present heading was that, while
[2.] reference to Israel'ssettlement was natural in the context of Jephthah's speech
in Judges 11, "in Numbers it represents a false conclusion since the struggle
continued against two other kingdoms before any conditional and incomplete
settlement was agreed upon (see ch. 32). Deuteronomy carefully avoids any
inconsistency in this matter" (p. 186). If there is inconsistency in Numbers,
however, it is not necessarily to be explained on the hypothesis that the
reference to settlement has been imported from Judges 11. The "false

'Num 22:1 is usually assigned to P or editorial work, and Num 20:19 is also often reckoned as
additional to the basic story (cf. Van Seters, p. 191); see S. Mittmann, "Num 20, 14-21-eine
redaktionelle Kompilation," in Wort und Geschichte (Festschrift fur K. Elliger) (AOAT 18;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1973) 143-49, esp. pp. 144-45.

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 BARTLETT: CONQUEST OF SIHON'S KINGDOM 349

conclusion" ("anticipatory" might be a better adjective) might equally well

have arisen from the juxtaposition in Numbers of the Sihon story and its
result with the material about the settlement of Reuben and Gad.2 The
reference to settlement in Num 21:24a was not necessarily out of place in the
Sihon story in the form in which it reached the editor of Numbers. The
explanation we adopt of the "false conclusion" depends upon our view of the
literary history of the passage, and cannot be a basic plank of Van Seters'
reconstruction. Further, Van Seters is arguing that Deut 2:26-37 lay before
the writer-redactor of Num 21:21-25. But (as Van Seters notices, p. 186)
"Deuteronomy carefully avoids any inconsistency in this matter" (i.e., of
Israelite settlement following the defeat of Sihon). Deuteronomy, in fact, as if
seeing that the Numbers account anticipates the settlement a little, firmly says,
"And the LORD said to me, 'Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land
over to you; begin to take possession, that you may occupy his land"' (Deut
2:31). If the author of Num 21:21-25 had that passage in front of him, he
ignored it.
(5) "The wording of Numbers often agrees very closely with that of
Judges, especially in the battle presentation" (Num 21:23-24; Judg 11:20-22;
cf. 11:32-33) (p. 186). Van Seters thinks that the deuteronomic account of the
battle against Sihon (Deut 2:32-36) is in form parallel to royal victory
inscriptions in the first person from the Assyrian annals, celebrating the king's
greatness and the deity's assistance. These inscriptions show "a scribal
convention of recording military campaigns which was evidently widespread
in the Near East, certainly during the late monarchy and exilic periods when
the deuteronomistic literature was written" (p. 188). In the Neo-Babylonian
period there developed from this the literary form of the Babylonian
chronicle, in which the king's deeds are recorded in the first person, and the
element of divine intervention is rare. "It is this chronicle form to which the
Numbers account of the Sihon battle corresponds most closely" (p. 189). If so,
this assists Van Seters' argument that the Numbers account is later than the
deuteronomic, conflating it with the account in Judges 11.
This attempt to date the battle account of Deut 2:32-36 and Num 21:23-24
by reference to an Assyrian/ Babylonian developing scribal convention and by
playing down the possibility of oral tradition has recently been put in question
by D. M. Gunn's article "The'Battle Report': Oral or Scribal Convention?"
(JBL 93 [1974] 513-18). Gunn argues that Van Seters is wrong to begin by
limiting oral tradition to the world of bards and songs and to the heroic style;
and secondly, that a certain formalising of battle narratives along the lines of
Richter's Kampfbericht"is not remarkablein a narrative setting, whether it be
a scribal/ annalistic one in Assyria, or an oral-tradition one in Israel"(p. 517).
Further, Gunn criticises Richter's discussion of the OT form as "a somewhat

20n all this material and its literary history, see now Manfried Wiist, Untersuchungenzu den
siedlungsgeographischen Texten des Alten Testaments. I. Ostjordanland(Beihefte zum Tubinger
Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften) Nr. 9; Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig,
Reichert, 1975.

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350 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

deficient base on which to rest a comparison. It is much too generalized .

to provide anything but the loosest indication of a possible OT stereotype.
Obviously the looser the definition, the easier it is to find parallels in the
Ancient Near Eastern accounts" (p. 518). Dependence of the form of the
Sihon battle accounts on the Assyrian/ Neo-Babylonian annalistic or
chronicle forms, then, cannot be taken as proved or as determinative for
dating. In any case, this part of Van Seters' thesis plays at best a supporting
role in the argument.
(6) "In a few places Numbers [21:21-25] appears to combine the
phrasing of both Deuteronomy and Judges but in a rather unsuccessful
manner" (Van Seters, p. 189). Thus in Num 21:24b Van Seters thinks that
Numbers used Judges' description of captured territory (Judg 11:21-22), but
in v 25 the Numbers reference to "these cities" alludes to "the Deuteronomy
version which speaks of Israel taking cities rather than territory."Van Seters
further argues that Num 21:21-25 conflates the geography of Deuteronomy (a
peaceful journey along the King's Highway) and of Judges (a detour through
the desert).
This analysis, however, should be compared with the recent more detailed
analysis of M. Wust, who argues that the secondary geographical description
of the captured territory in Num 21:24b derives from Josh 12:2,and that Judg
11:22 combines Num 21:24 and Judg 11:13 (itself also influenced by Josh
12:2).3 "These cities" (Num 21:25) is perhaps abrupt; but if (ex hypothesi)
Numbers was following Deuteronomy, why did the writer not simply copy
Deuteronomy's "all his cities" (Deut 2:34)? The argument that Numbers has
conflated Deuteronomy's peaceful journey along the King's Highway with
Judges' detour through the desert is not needed to explain the picture given in
Num 21:21-25. The author is starting from the situation that the Israelites are
in the wilderness (cf. Num 21:10-20) and it is not surprising that he makes
Sihon advance against Israel "to the wilderness"(v 23) and puts the site of the
battle, Jahaz (wherever in fact the place was actually sited), on the wilderness
borders of Sihon's territory.
(7) Van Seters argues that the messenger speech of Num 21:22 is a
shorter version, by the same hand, of that in Num 20:17, a speech itself
dependent upon Deut 2:27-29, and that the whole passage Num 20:14-21 is
also an account which has been modified in conformity with Judg 11:12-22
(pp. 189-92).4
If Van Seters could demonstrate convincingly the dependence of Num
20:17-19 on Deut 2:27-28, his whole thesis might be more persuasive. But this
is perhaps the weakest part of his cumulative argument. He compares Num
20:17-19 and Deut 2:27-28 clearly:

'See Wust, Untersuchungen, 10-24.

4For an important discussion of Num 20:14-21 see the article by Mittmann cited above.
Mittmann sees this account as a late redactor's compilation based on the Sihon story of Num
21:21-30 and the "credo"of Deut 26:5-9, and as the starting point for the developing tradition
seen in Deut 2:4-6, 8a, and Judg 11:17.

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 BARTLETT: CONQUEST OF SIHON'S KINGDOM 351

It is generally recognized that at least the major part of Num 20:14-21 is from the same
hand as that of 21:21-25. This is quite evident in the content of the message in which 20:17
agrees so closely with 21:22, with the latter a little shorter. On the other hand, Num 20:19 is
generally considered somewhat contradictory to vs. 17 and therefore evidence of another
source. Yet a comparison of Num 20:17-19 with Deut 2:27-29 reveals that in wording Deut
2:27 corresponds to Num 20:17, while Deut 2:28 is similar to Num 20:19. Nevertheless
Deuteronomy does not contain the inconsistencies found in Numbers, since Deuteronomy
does not have the words, "We will not pass through field or vineyard, neither will we drink
water from a well," which are somewhat redundant in Num 20:17 and contradictory to vs. 19.
Furthermore, Deut 2:28 (cf. vs. 6) includes the buying of both food and water, while Num
20:19 mentions only water and leaves the matter of food-supply uncertain. For the rest,
however, the verbal correspondences are so close that they suggest literary dependence
rather than simply a common oral tradition.
This raises the difficult question, in which direction the dependence is to be viewed (p.
191).

In fact, the comparison Van Seters here makes suggests immediately that in
this passage Deuteronomy is dependent on Numbers. For Deuteronomy
removes the inconsistencies and clarifies the point left obscure in Numbers.
Van Seters' only argument for reversing the obvious dependence is that he
finds it hard to accept "a contradictory literary history" by which the
Deuteronomist, editing an old, fixed literary tradition, "in contrast to the JE
editor . . . has completely removed all inconsistencies and produced a
smooth literary account entirely consistent with its own style and viewpoint
while retaining much of the actual language of the earlier work" (p. 191). But
the process of literary history here described seems neither contradictory nor
hard to accept. Van Seters'judgment on the point stands only if his previous
argumentation is well-founded. In this article I have tried to demonstrate that
this is not the case.
Van Seters, then, has not in my view succeeded in showing that Num
21:21-25 is the result of the conflation of the accounts in Deut 2:26-37 and
Judg 11:19-26. It still seems more likely that Num 21:21-25 is the source of the
other two accounts.

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