20 Og king of Bashan; For his loving kindness endures forever;
Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. Yahweh said to me, Don't fear him; for I have delivered him, and all his people, and his land, into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon. So Yahweh our God delivered into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we struck him until none was left to him remaining. We took all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we didn't take from them; sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; besides the unwalled towns a great many. We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves. We took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon; ([which] Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir;) all the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, to Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; isn't it in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length of it, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.) This land we took in possession at that time: from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill-country of Gilead, and the cities of it, gave I to the Reubenites and to the Gadites: and the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, gave I to the half-tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, even all Bashan. (The same is called the land of Rephaim. Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob, to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and called them, even Bashan, after his own name, Havvoth Jair, to this day.) I gave Gilead to Machir. To the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead even to the valley of the Arnon, the middle of the valley, and the border [of it], even to the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon; the Arabah also, and the Jordan and the border [of it], from Chinnereth even to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah eastward. I commanded you at that time, saying, Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it: you shall pass over armed before your brothers the children of Israel, all the men of valor. But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle, (I know that you have much cattle), shall abide in your cities which I have given you, until Yahweh give rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also possess the land which Yahweh your God gives them beyond the Jordan: then shall you return every man to his possession, which I have given you. I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings: so shall Yahweh do to all the kingdoms where you go over. You shall not fear them; for Yahweh your God, he it is who fights for you. I begged Yahweh at that time, saying, Lord Yahweh, you have begun to show your servant your greatness, and your strong hand: for what god is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to your works, and according to your mighty acts? Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and didn't listen to me; and Yahweh said to me, Let it suffice you; speak no more to me of this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see with your eyes: for you shall not go over this Jordan. But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you shall see. So we abode in the valley over against Beth Peor.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 136
Commentary on Psalms 136 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
O Give Thanks unto the Lord, for He Is Good
The cry Psalms 135:3, Praise ye Jāh , for good is Jahve , is here followed by a Hodu , the last of the collection, with “for His goodness endureth for ever” repeated twenty-six times as a versus intercalaris . In the liturgical language this Psalm is called par excellence the great Hallel, for according to its broadest compass the great Hallel comprehends Ps 120-136,
(Note: There are three opinions in the Talmud and Midrash concerning the compass of the “Great Hallel,” viz., (1) Ps 136, (2) Ps. 135:4-136:26, (3) Ps 120-136.)
whilst the Hallel which is absolutely so called extends from Psalms 113:1-9 to Ps 118. Down to Psalms 136:18 the song and counter-song organize themselves into hexastichic groups or strophes, which, however, from Psalms 136:19 (and therefore from the point where the dependence on Ps 135, already begun with Psalms 136:17, becomes a borrowing, onwards) pass over into octastichs. In Heidenheim's Psalter the Psalm appears (after Norzi) in two columns (like Deut. 32), which it is true has neither tradition (vid., Ps 18) nor MSS precedent in its favour, but really corresponds to its structure.
Like the preceding Psalm, this Psalm allies itself to the Book of Deuteronomy. Psalms 136:2 and Psalms 136:3 ( God of gods and Lord of lords ) are taken from Deuteronomy 10:17; Psalms 136:12 ( with a strong hand and stretched-out arm ) from Deuteronomy 4:34; Deuteronomy 5:15, and frequently (cf. Jeremiah 32:21); Psalms 136:16 like Deuteronomy 8:15 (cf. Jeremiah 2:6). With reference to the Deuteronomic colouring of Psalms 136:19-22, vid., on Psalms 135:10-12; also the expression “Israel His servant” recalls Deuteronomy 32:36 (cf. Psalms 135:14; Psalms 90:13), and still more Isaiah 40:1, where the comprehension of Israel under the unity of this notion has its own proper place. In other respects, too, the Psalm is an echo of earlier model passages. Who alone doeth great wonders sounds like Psalms 72:18 (Psalms 86:10); and the adjective “great” that is added to “wonders” shows that the poet found the formula already in existence. In connection with Psalms 136:5 he has Proverbs 3:19 or Jeremiah 10:12 in his mind; תּבוּנה , like חכמה , is the demiurgic wisdom. Psalms 136:6 calls to mind Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 44:24; the expression is “above the waters,” as in Psalms 34:2 “upon the seas,” because the water is partly visible and partly invisible מתּחת לארץ (Exodus 20:4). The plural אורים , luces , instead of מארות , lumina (cf. Ezekiel 32:8, מאורי אור ), is without precedent. It is a controverted point whether אורת in Isaiah 26:19 signifies lights (cf. אורה , Psalms 139:12) or herbs (2 Kings 4:39). The plural ממשׁלות is also rare (occurring only besides in Psalms 114:2): it here denotes the dominion of the moon on the one hand, and (going beyond Genesis 1:16) of the stars on the other. בּלּילה , like בּיּום , is the second member of the stat. construct .
Up to this point it is God the absolute in general, the Creator of all things, to the celebration of whose praise they are summoned; and from this point onwards the God of the history of salvation. In Psalms 136:13 גּזר (instead of בּקע , Psalms 78:13; Exodus 14:21; Nehemiah 9:11) of the dividing of the Red Sea is peculiar; גּזרים (Genesis 15:17, side by side with בּתרים ) are the pieces or parts of a thing that is cut up into pieces. נער is a favourite word taken from Exodus 14:27. With reference to the name of the Egyptian ruler Pharaoh (Herodotus also, ii. 111, calls the Pharaoh of the Exodus the son of Sesostris-Rameses Miumun, not Μενόφθας , as he is properly called, but absolutely Φερῶν ), vid., on Psalms 73:22. After the God to whom the praise is to be ascribed has been introduced with ל by always fresh attributes, the ל before the names of Sihon and of Og is perplexing. The words are taken over, as are the six lines of Psalms 136:17-22 in the main, from Psalms 135:10-12, with only a slight alteration in the expression. In Psalms 136:23 the continued influence of the construction הודוּ ל is at an end. The connection by means of שׁ (cf. Psalms 135:8, Psalms 135:10) therefore has reference to the preceding “for His goodness endureth for ever.” The language here has the stamp of the latest period. It is true זכר with Lamed of the object is used even in the earliest Hebrew, but שׁפל is only authenticated by Ecclesiastes 10:6, and פּרק , to break loose = to rescue (the customary Aramaic word for redemption), by Lamentations 5:8, just as in the closing verse, which recurs to the beginning, “God of heaven” is a name for God belonging to the latest literature, Nehemiah 1:4; Nehemiah 2:4. In Psalms 136:23 the praise changes suddenly to that which has been experienced very recently. The attribute in Psalms 136:25 (cf. Psalms 147:9; Psalms 145:15) leads one to look back to a time in which famine befell them together with slavery.