Deuteronomy 3:1-11·~1 min

The Defeat of Og

Og marches out against Israel at Edrei, but the LORD tells Moses not to fear because Bashan has already been given over. Israel then defeats Og and his whole army without survivors.

T¹hen we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. ²But the LORD said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, along with all his people and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.” ³So the LORD our God also delivered Og king of Bashan and his whole army into our hands. We struck them down until no survivor was left.

Israel captures every city in Og's realm, including heavily fortified towns and unwalled villages. As with Sihon, the cities are devoted to destruction, while livestock and spoil are kept.

⁴At that time we captured all sixty of his cities. There was not a single city we failed to take — the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ⁵All these cities were fortified with high walls and gates and bars, and there were many more unwalled villages. ⁶We devoted them to destruction, as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city. ⁷But all the livestock and plunder of the cities we carried off for ourselves.

Moses names the land taken from the two Amorite kings, stretching from the Arnon Valley to Mount Hermon and across the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan. The note about Og's great iron bed preserves his memory as the last of the Rephaim remnant.

⁸At that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon — ⁹which the Sidonians call Sirion but the Amorites call Senir — ¹⁰all the cities of the plateau, all of Gilead, and all of Bashan as far as the cities of Salecah and Edrei in the kingdom of Og. ¹¹(For only Og king of Bashan had remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed of iron, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)

Section summaryMoses recalls how Og of Bashan comes out to fight, but the LORD gives him and his land into Israel's hand just as He had done with Sihon. The section lingers over the scale of the victory, the fortified cities, and the extent of the territory now taken east of the Jordan.

Role in the chapterThis opening section completes the account of Israel's eastern victories and establishes the security and breadth of the land already gained. It shows the conquest moving forward under the LORD's word rather than Israel's strength.