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?
“‘Rise up, journey on, and cross over the Wadi Arnon. See, I have handed over Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land—begin to possess it! Engage him in battle!
From Aroer which is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon and the city by the wadi, all the way up to the Gilead, there was not a town too high for us. Adonai our God gave everything over to us.
But Adonai said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over and all his people and his land. You will do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’
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;
and ruled over Mount Hermon and Salcah and all Bashan, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half of Gilead, as far as the border of King Sihon of Heshbon.
They shattered and crushed Bnei-Yisrael that year—for 18 years all Bnei-Yisrael who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.