2 And Jehovah said to me, Fear him not; for into thy hand have I given him, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.
But Sihon would not suffer Israel to go through his border; and Sihon gathered all his people, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. And Israel took all these cities, and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, at Heshbon, and in all its dependent villages.
Rise up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon. Behold, I have given into thy hand Sihon the king of Heshbon, the Amorite, and his land: begin, take possession, and engage with him in battle. This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the peoples under the whole heaven; who will hear report of thee, and will tremble, and quake because of thee. And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon the king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, Let me pass through thy land: by the highway alone will I go; I will neither turn to the right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell me food for money that I may eat; and thou shalt give me water for money that I may drink; I will only pass through on my feet, -- as the children of Esau who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites who dwell in Ar, did to me, -- until I shall pass over the Jordan into the land which Jehovah our God giveth us. But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Jehovah thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obdurate, that he might give him into thy hand, as it is this day. And Jehovah said to me, Behold, I begin to give Sihon and his land before thee: begin, take possession, that thou mayest possess his land. And Sihon came out against us for battle, he and all his people, to Jahaz. But Jehovah our God gave him up before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and his whole people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed every city, men, and women, and little ones: we let none escape. Only the cattle we took as booty for ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took. From Aroer, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the ravine even to Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: Jehovah our God delivered all before us. Only thou didst not approach the land of the children of Ammon, the whole border of the river Jabbok, nor the cities of the mountain, nor to whatsoever Jehovah our God had forbidden us.
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Commentary on Deuteronomy 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 3
De 3:1-20. Conquest of Og, King of Bashan.
1. we turned, and went up the way to Bashan—Bashan ("fruitful" or "flat"), now El-Bottein, lay situated to the north of Gilead and extended as far as Hermon. It was a rugged mountainous country, valuable however for its rich and luxuriant pastures.
Og the king of Bashan came out against us—Without provocation, he rushed to attack the Israelites, either disliking the presence of such dangerous neighbors, or burning to avenge the overthrow of his friends and allies.
2. The Lord said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand—Og's gigantic appearance and the formidable array of forces he will bring to the field, need not discourage you; for, belonging to a doomed race, he is destined to share the fate of Sihon [Nu 21:25].
3-8. Argob was the capital of a district in Bashan of the same name, which, together with other fifty-nine cities in the same province, were conspicuous for their lofty and fortified walls. It was a war of extermination. Houses and cities were razed to the ground; all classes of people were put to the sword; and nothing was saved but the cattle, of which an immense amount fell as spoil into the hands of the conquerors. Thus, the two Amorite kings and the entire population of their dominions were extirpated. The whole country east of the Jordan—first upland downs from the torrent of the Arnon on the south to that of the Jabbok on the north; next the high mountain tract of Gilead and Bashan from the deep ravine of Jabbok—became the possession of the Israelites.
9. Hermon—now Jebel-Es-Sheick—the majestic hill on which the long and elevated range of Anti-Lebanon terminates. Its summit and the ridges on its sides are almost constantly covered with snow. It is not so much one high mountain as a whole cluster of mountain peaks, the highest in Palestine. According to the survey taken by the English Government Engineers in 1840, they were about 9376 feet above the sea. Being a mountain chain, it is no wonder that it should have received different names at different points from the different tribes which lay along the base—all of them designating extraordinary height: Hermon, the lofty peak; "Sirion," or in an abbreviated form "Sion" (De 4:48), the upraised, glittering; "Shenir," the glittering breastplate of ice.
11. only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants—literally, "of Rephaim." He was not the last giant, but the only living remnant in the trans-jordanic country (Jos 15:14), of a certain gigantic race, supposed to be the most ancient inhabitants of Palestine.
behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron—Although beds in the East are with the common people nothing more than a simple mattress, bedsteads are not unknown. They are in use among the great, who prefer them of iron or other metals, not only for strength and durability, but for the prevention of the troublesome insects which in warm climates commonly infest wood. Taking the cubit at half a yard, the bedstead of Og would measure thirteen and a half feet, so that as beds are usually a little larger than the persons who occupy them, the stature of the Amorite king may be estimated at about eleven or twelve feet; or he might have caused his bed to be made much larger than was necessary, as Alexander the Great did for each of his foot soldiers, to impress the Indians with an idea of the extraordinary strength and stature of his men [Le Clerc]. But how did Og's bedstead come to be in Rabbath, of the children of Ammon? In answer to this question, it has been said, that Og had, on the eve of engagement, conveyed it to Rabbath for safety. Or it may be that Moses, after capturing it, may have sold it to the Ammonites, who had kept it as an antiquarian curiosity till their capital was sacked in the time of David. This is a most unlikely supposition, and besides renders it necessary to consider the latter clause of this verse as an interpolation inserted long after the time of Moses. To avoid this, some eminent critics take the Hebrew word rendered "bedstead" to mean "coffin." They think that the king of Bashan having been wounded in battle, fled to Rabbath, where he died and was buried; hence the dimensions of his "coffin" are given [Dathe, Roos].
12, 13. this land, which we possessed at that time, from Aroer … gave I unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites—The whole territory occupied by Sihon was parcelled out among the pastoral tribes of Reuben and Gad. It extended from the north bank of the Arnon to the south half of mount Gilead—a small mountain ridge, now called Djelaad, about six or seven miles south of the Jabbok, and eight miles in length. The northern portion of Gilead and the rich pasture lands of Bashan—a large province, consisting, with the exception of a few bleak and rocky spots, of strong and fertile soil—was assigned to the half-tribe of Manasseh.
14. Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob—The original inhabitants of the province north of Bashan, comprising sixty cities (De 3:4), not having been extirpated along with Og, this people were afterwards brought into subjection by the energy of Jair. This chief, of the tribe of Manasseh, in accordance with the pastoral habits of his people, called these newly acquired towns by a name which signifies "Jair's Bedouin Villages of Tents."
unto this day—This remark must evidently have been introduced by Ezra, or some of the pious men who arranged and collected the books of Moses.
15. I gave Gilead unto Machir—It was only the half of Gilead (De 3:12, 13) which was given to the descendants of Machir, who was now dead.
16. from Gilead—that is, not the mountainous region, but the town Ramoth-gilead,
even unto the river Arnon half the valley—The word "valley" signifies a wady, either filled with water or dry, as the Arnon is in summer, and thus the proper rendering of the passage will be—"even to the half or middle of the river Arnon" (compare Jos 12:2). This prudent arrangement of the boundaries was evidently made to prevent all disputes between the adjacent tribes about the exclusive right to the water.
25. I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon—The natural and very earnest wish of Moses to be allowed to cross the Jordan was founded on the idea that the divine threatening might be conditional and revertible. "That goodly mountain" is supposed by Jewish writers to have pointed to the hill on which the temple was to be built (De 12:5; Ex 15:2). But biblical scholars now, generally, render the words—"that goodly mountain, even Lebanon," and consider it to be mentioned as typifying the beauty of Palestine, of which hills and mountains were so prominent a feature.
26. speak no more unto me of this matter—that is, My decree is unalterable.