Defeat of Og of Bashan

“Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and King Og of Bashan(A) came out against us with his whole army to do battle at Edrei.(B) But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites,(C) who lived in Heshbon.’ So the Lord our God also handed over King Og of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left.(D) We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: sixty cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a large number of rural villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon, destroying the men, women, and children of every city. But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.(E)

The Land of the Transjordan Tribes

“At that time we took the land from the two Amorite kings across the Jordan,(F) from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon, which the Sidonians call Sirion, but the Amorites call Senir, 10 all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.(G) 11 (Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim.(H) His bed[a] was made of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites?(I) It is 13½ feet long and 6 feet wide by a standard measure.[b])(J)

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Footnotes

  1. 3:11 Or sarcophagus
  2. 3:11 Lit nine cubits its length and four cubits its width, by a man’s cubit

Next we turned and went up along the road to Bashan. Og, Bashan’s king, came out with all his forces to meet us in battle at Edrei. The Lord said to me: Don’t be afraid of him! I have handed him, all his forces, and his land over to you. Do the same thing to him that you did to Sihon, the Amorite king who ruled in Heshbon.

And so the Lord our God also handed Og, Bashan’s king, along with his forces, over to us. We struck them down until no survivor was left. We also captured all of Og’s towns at that time. There wasn’t a single city that we didn’t take from them—a total of sixty towns, the entire region of Argob, the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan. Each of these towns was fortified with high walls, double gates, and crossbars. Outside the towns there were also a great number of villages.[a] We placed them under the ban, just as we did with Sihon, Heshbon’s king. Every town—men, women, and children—was under the ban.[b] The only things we kept for ourselves were the animals and the plunder from the towns.

So at that time, we took the land that had belonged to the two Amorite kings beyond the Jordan, all the way from the Arnon Ravine to Mount Hermon (Sidonians call Hermon “Sirion,” but the Amorites call it “Senir”), 10 including all the towns on the plateau, in the regions of Gilead and Bashan, and all the way to Salecah and Edrei—all the towns that belonged to Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

(11 By the way, Bashan’s King Og was the last of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron. Isn’t it still in the Ammonite town of Rabbah? By standard measurements, it was thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide.)

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 3:5 Heb uncertain
  2. Deuteronomy 3:6 See note at 2:34.