Numbers 32:37

“And the children of Reuben built Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Kirjathaim.] Heshbon was the royal city of Sihon king of the Amorites, and Elealeh was within a mile of it, (see <043203>Numbers 32:3), this shows that those cities were not built anew properly, only repaired, for they were cities in being long before; besides, they had not time to build new cities, for in a few months after this they passed over Jordan; though indeed they left men enough behind to rebuild cities, whom they might set to work about them when they departed: Kirjathaim is, by the Targum of Jonathan, called the city of two streets paved with marble, and it adds, this is Beresha: Jerom f471 says, it is now called…”

“The Reubenites established themselves more compactly than the Gadites. Elcalch (el-’Al) a mile to the northeast; Nebo (Nebbeh) probably three miles to the southwest; Baal-meon (Main) nearly two miles to the south; Kirjathaim (Kureiyat?): and Shibmah, more properly Sibmah, famous at a later period for its vines (compare Isaiah 16:8), four miles east of Heshbon; all clustered round the old Amorite Capital. The Reubenites probably retained at the partition all these cities with the exception of Heshbon, which, passing to the Levites, were thenceforth reckoned as within the tribe of Gad. Neither the Reubenites nor the Gadites were “builders” in the sense of founders of the cities of which they…”

“32:37-38 If names of some of the towns were changed to avoid pagan associations (e.g., “Baal,” the well-known Canaanite god, or “Nebo,” a Babylonian deity; see Isa 46:1), the alternate designations are not provided here.”

“Heshbon: Num 32:3, Num 21:27; Isa 15:4 Elealeh: Elealeh is placed, by Eusebius, a mile from Heshbon. It is now called El Aal, "the high," and is situated on a hill. Numbers 32:38”

“The Reubenites built Heshbon, the capital of king Sihon (see Num 21:16), which was allotted to the tribe of Reuben ( Jos 13:17), but relinquished to the Gadites, because it was situated upon the border of their territory, and given up by them to the Levites ( Jos 21:39; Ch1 6:66). It stood almost in the centre between the Arnon and Jabbok, opposite to Jericho, and, according to the Onomast., twenty Roman miles from the Jordan, where the ruins of a large town of about a mile in circumference are still to be seen, with deep bricked wells, and a large reservoir, bearing the ancient name of Hesban or H׬sban (Seetzen; Burckhardt, p. 623; Robinson, Pal. ii. 278; cf. v. Raumer, Pal. p. 262; and…”