Joshua 13:25

25. Jazer Written also Jaazer. It was an important city, having dependent villages, (Numbers 21:32,) and giving its name to the surrounding country, “the land of Jazer.” Numbers 32:1. It was one of the four cities of Gad assigned to the Levites. Joshua 21:39. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 48:32) speaks of the “sea of Jazer,” which may have been some lake or pool in the vicinity. Burckhardt, Van de Velde, and others, identify it with a ruined town called Seir or Sir, some twelve miles north of Heshbon.

All the cities of Gilead That is, of the southern portion of Gilead, for the northern was given to Manasseh. Joshua 13:31.

Half the land of the children of Ammon The country between the Arnon and the Jabbok. See Judges 11:13, note. This ancient possession of the children of Lot Israel captured, not of Ammon, but of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had previously taken it out of the hand of the king of Moab.

Numbers 21:26. Yet it retained the name of its ancient owners.

Aroer that is before Rabbah That is, Aroer is before or in front of Rabbah to one who advances towards Rabbah from the Jordan. This Aroeris supposed by many to be identical with the ruined site Ayra, which Burckhardt discovered about seven miles southwest of es-Salt, and nearly half way between the Jordan and Rabbah. Rabbah was the great city and capital of the Ammonites, and is called in Deuteronomy 3:11 Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and here Og’s great iron bedstead was preserved. But as Israel was not to meddle with the children of Ammon, (Deuteronomy 2:19,) Rabbah was not disturbed, nor included in the territory of Gad. It was afterwards besieged and taken by David. 2 Samuel 12:29. Its ruins are known under the modern name of Amman, about twenty-two miles east of the Jordan.