Now these are the kings of the land whom the Israelites struck down and whose lands they took beyond the Jordan to the east, from the Arnon Valley to Mount Hermon, including all the Arabah eastward:
1. NOW these are the kings, etc This chapter does not need a lengthened exposition, as it only enumerates the kings of whose territories the Israelites gained possession. Two of them are beyond the Jordan, Og and Sihon, whose rule was extensive; in the land of Canaan there are thirty-one.
Joshua, or whoever else is the historian before he comes to sum up the new conquests Israel had made, in these verses receives their former conquests in Moses's time, under whom they became masters of the great and potent kingdoms of Sihon and Og.
Commenting on Joshua 12:1-6
Now these are the kings of the land which the children of Israel smote,.... In the days of Moses, as Jarchi remarks, and as it clearly appears from what follows: and possessed, their land on the other side Jordan toward the rising of the sun; on the east of the land of Canaan: from the river Arnon unto the mount Hermon, and all the plain...