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.
Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon near the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus.
There is no more praise for Moab. In Heshbon they plotted evil against her: ‘Come, let’s cut her off as a nation.’ You too, Madmen, will be silenced— the sword will chase you.
“In the shadow of Heshbon the fugitives stop, exhausted, for fire breaks out of Heshbon flame from within Sihon, and it singes the foreheads and the scalps of Moab’s noisy sons.
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?