3:8-11 - So at that time we took from these two kings of the Amorites the territory east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge as far as Mount Hermon. (Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.) We took all the towns on the plateau, and all Gilead, and all Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og's kingdom in Bashan. (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites. His bed was made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide.1 It is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)
As was noted in the introduction to this unit, we assume that these four verses make up a parenthetical remark by the narrator who wrote up Moses' addresses some years after Moses had expounded them.2. But, whether we accept this or assume as most commentators do that these are Moses' own words, these verses summarize GenB's accomplishments from the two wars on the eve of their entry into and conquest of the Promised Land west of the Jordan.
Here too the tenor of success and victory is unambiguous. First, the land taken stretches from end to end—from the Arnon Gorge "as far as Mount Hermon" (v8) in one case and "as far as Salecah and Edrei" (v10) in the other—but it is also "all the towns on the plateau, all Gilead and all Bashan" (v9-10). Second, Og may have outlived all the other Rephaites from whom he was descended, but he did not survive the Israelites. In an interjection, as if any one might doubt the fact of the case, the narrator points—by way of a rhetorical question3—to the proof of Og's iron bed, available for viewing still in the town of Rabbah of the Ammonites (modern-day Amman). Yes, a grand iron bed—all thirteen by six feet of it. But it is an empty bed, for Og the giant sleeps in it no more. Whatever giant GenN may face—whatever giant we may face—says the narrator, faith and obedience in Yahweh can bring him down.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, rev., 2021