So they hired 32,000 chariots along with the king of Maacah and his people, who came and camped before Medeba. The children of Ammon also assembled from their cities and moved out to the battle.
Heshbon was the city of King Sihon of the Amorites, who had fought with the former king of Moab and had taken from his control all the land as far as the Arnon.
“This land we took in possession at that time—from Aroer by the Wadi Arnon and half the hill country of the Gilead and its cities—I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites.
King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, even up to the Jabbok River, the border of the children of Ammon;
from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the flatland from Medeba to Dibon;
But the Levites have no portion among you—for the priesthood of Adonai is their inheritance. Also Gad, Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of Adonai gave them.”
While Israel was living in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities on both sides of the Arnon for 300 years, why didn’t you try to recover them all that time?