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Sihon was an Amorite king mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, king of Ashtaroth, who refused to let the Israelites pass through his country. Chronicled in Numbers, he was defeated by Moses and the Israelites at the battle of Jahaz. He and Og were said to be the two kings Moses defeated on the east side of the Jordan river.
Heshbon is highlighted due to its importance as the capital of Sihon, King of the Amorites: "For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon." [5]
The city was one of Moab's most prominent, being listed by the prophet Isaiah in his denunciation of the Moabite nation (Isaiah 15:1). Matthew Poole suggested that "the city was seated in an island in the middle of the river". [2] The Bible speaks of Ar as being captured by the Amorite King Sihon (Numbers 21:28).
The people of Moab send a lamb as a present to the one who rules in Jerusalem [8] 2 Kings 3:4 states that: Mesha king of Moab was a sheepbreeder, and he regularly paid the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams. But it happened, when Ahab died, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
These Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary (Numbers 21:13; Judges 11:18). God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the Promised Land ( Deuteronomy 29:1 ).
The Bible calls the city "Divon" (Hebrew: דִּיבֹן), or "Divon Gad" (דִּיבֹן גָּד ) because the city was said to have been occupied by the tribe of Gad. The name in Biblical Hebrew means wasting or pining. According to the Bible, the city was conquered by the Amorite king Sihon from the Moabites.
Sihon's territory extended from the river Arnon —running from the east into the Dead Sea, and forming the northern boundary of Moab — northwards along the east bank of the Jordan River to its next major tributary, the Jabbok (where Jacob had wrestled with God; Genesis 32:22–32), including a stretch of the Arabah well to the north of the ...
The Heshbon Expedition failed to find clear archaeological evidence proving the Biblical account or existence of a King Sihon at Tall Hisban. This has led some scholars to look for other locations for biblical Heshbon. [3] Others have welcomed it as support for a revisionist history of the origins of Israel. [4]