Numbers 21:1-3--Arad Destroyed

Numbers 21:1-3
English Standard Version

Arad Destroyed
21 When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. 2 And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.” 3 And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.

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This passage gives us just a little hint at the general region where Aaron was buried.  We know they are close to the border with Edom still, that there is a mountain there which they called Mount Hor, they are also somewhat close to the city of Kadesh (from where they sent their diplomatic envoy), and we know that the king of Arad, one of the Canaanite kings who lived in the Negeb (or Negev, depending on translations) desert felt threatened by them and came out to war against them and to capture them when he heard they were coming by the way of Atharim.

There is now a change in the narrative as the people are intent on fighting the very people that they once said they could not defeat and they are depending on God to give them the victory, even if that means making a vow to Him that all of the cities and everything that they had in them would be devoted to destruction (we will see this kind of vow several times throughout the period of the Conquest).  God will sometimes tell the Israelites that it is the right time for that people/tribe/nation to come under judgment and other times He will tell them it is not the right time for them and that they should not destroy them completely.  In this case, it appears there was no argument from the LORD that it was the right time for this city-state (most of the Canaanite clans were organized in such a way where they were cities with kings that had influence over their surrounding areas that paid tribute to that king and asked for their protection, so sometimes the names we see refer to individual cities, sometimes to the king, or sometimes to everyone who allied themselves with that city or king).  It seems from events that happen later in the book of Joshua that this vow was meant to include all the cities that were under the control of this king and included more than the city of Arad itself as there will be other nearby cities with different names which will later be destroyed to fulfill this vow.  So then, the name of that place means, "devoted or consecrated to God; utter destruction."

There is some agreement on where this place/region is, even today as this place is referred to a few other times in the Bible that give us some contextual hints, and while it is given a different name in their documents, it seems that ancient Egyptian documents also seem to document this battle and the destruction of city.  This city is in the wilderness to the south of Judah and it is on the border between the land inherited by Judah and that inherited by Simeon--we'll get to that and the maps of that later, but Simeon's portion was inside that of Judah, though thy would later forfeit that land to side with the northern kingdom of Israel and Judah would take possession of all the southern kingdom that was not the inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin and that southern kingdom could come to be known as the kingdom of Judah (the tribe from whom the rightful kings that were descendants of King David would come from).

Again, this is real history in real places about real cities, tribes, people groups and nations.  It would be really dumb to include all these details to make your story falsifiable by the people that lived in that region if this were not literal history.  So then, if the things in this book which are natural and verifiable have been shown to be true, why distrust the record of the things that are supernatural and not yet verifiable or might be totally unverifiable (water coming from a rock, manna from heaven, being led by a pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, etc.)?  The Old Testament gives us plenty of reason to believe that it is historically accurate.