Ar, Ar of Moab

ar, mo'-ab (`ar, `ar-mo'abh; Er; Aroer or Seeir): The city of Ar is named in a snatch of ancient song (Nu 21:15), literally "the site of Ar." It is identical with "Ar of Moab" (Nu 21:28; Isa 15:1). This is probably the place called the City of Moab in Nu 22:36, where the Hebrew is `ir mo'abh. It is probably also intended by "the city that is in the middle of the valley" (De 2:36; Jos 13:9,16; 2Sa 24:5). It lay "on the border of the Arnon, which is in the utmost part of the border" (Nu 22:36). A possible identification might be the ruin noted by Burckhardt, in the floor of the valley, on a piece of pasture-land below the confluence of the Lejjun and the Mojib. Buhl however thinks that not a city but a Moabite district somewhere in the region south of the Arnon may be intended (GAP, 269).

W. Ewing