Great Big Og

Included in last week's Torah portion is the destruction of the kingdoms of Sihon and Og. This post relates the story of the conquest of the giant Og from the text in Numbers, a parallel text in Deuteronomy, and finally from the ancient Jewish haggadic (story-telling) tradition. The sages' commentary on the fall of Og is probably one of my favorite re-tellings and illustrates the complementary ways in which stories from the midrashic and haggadic traditions can expand and illuminate the text, as well as make it more vivid and easy to remember.

The Story

Numbers 21:33-35 NKJV
(33) And they turned and went up by the way to Bashan. So Og king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. (34) Then the LORD said to Moses, "Do not fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, with all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon." (35) So they defeated him, his sons, and all his people, until there was no survivor left him; and they took possession of his land.

The Parallel Account

Deuteronomy 3:1-11 NKJV
(1) "Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan; and Og king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. (2) And the LORD said to me, 'Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand; you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.' (3) "So the LORD our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining. (4) And we took all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (5) All these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural towns. (6) And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city. (7) But all the livestock and the spoil of the cities we took as booty for ourselves. (8) "And at that time we took the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were on this side of the Jordan, from the River Arnon to Mount Hermon (9) (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir), (10) all the cities of the plain, all Gilead, and all Bashan, as far as Salcah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (11) "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead. (Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon?) Nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit.

From this passage, we learn that Og was the last of the giants (see Gen. 6:4 and Deut. 2:10-12, 20-23) and that he slept upon an iron bedstead of nine cubits by four cubits (approximately 13.5 feet by 6 feet). The iron bedstead, according to Strong's Concordance and Brown-Driver-Brigg's dictionary can be understood to be a couch or bed. From these texts, and a few other references in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Nehemiah, and the Psalms, the retelling of the story of Og developed in the haggadic tradition, which in many ways has parallels to the parables of Yeshua, who often employed stories to illustrate spiritual truths.

A Condensed Haggadah

The following re-telling is excerpted from Legends of the Bible(1) by Louis Ginzberg (pg. 462-463), which is a single-volume abridgement of Ginzberg's exhaustive seven-volume work Legends of the Jews. Specific notes and references to the ancient sources can be found in the complete work, but are not included in the abridged volume. Without further preface, here is the story of Og from the haggadic tradition.

Moses now feared to wage war against Og, not only on account of his giant strength and huge size, which Moses had now witnessed with his own eyes, but he also thought: "I am only one-hundred and twenty years old, whereas he is more than five hundred. Surely he could never have attained so great an age, had he not performed meritorious deeds." Moses also remembered that Og was the only giant that had escaped the hand of Amraphel, and he perceived in this a token of God's special favor toward Og. Moses feared, moreover, that Israel in the recent war against Sihon might have committed sins, so that God would not now stand by them. "The pious are always afraid of the consequences of sin, and therefore do not rely upon the assurances God has made to them"; hence Moses now feared to advance upon Og even though God had promised him aid against his enemies. God, however, said to him: "What matters to thee Og's gigantic stature? He is as a green leaf in thy hand, his destruction has been decreed since the moment when he looked with evil eyes upon Jacob and his family when they arrived in Egypt." For even then God had said to him: "O thou wicked knave, why dost thou look upon them with an evil eye? Verily, thine eye shall be burst, for thou shalt fall into their hands."

Og met his death in the following fashion. When he discovered that Israel's camp was three parasangs in circumference, he said: "I shall now tear up a mountain of three parasangs and cast it upon Israel's camp, and crush them." He did as he had planned, pulled up a mountain of three parasangs, laid it upon his head, and came marching in the direction of the Israelite camp, to hurl it upon them. But what did God do? He caused ants to perforate the mountain so that it slipped from Og's head down upon his neck, and when he attempted to shake it off, his teeth pushed out and extended to the left and right, and did not let the mountain pass, so that he now stood there with the mountain, unable to throw it from him. When Moses saw this, he took an axe twelve cubits long, leaped ten cubits into the air, and dealt a blow to Og's ankle, which caused the giant's death.

This was the end of the last of the giants, who was not only last in time, but also in significance, for despite his height and strength, he was the most insignificant of the giants who perished in the flood.

***
So we see in this story, the original Air Moses dealing the fatal blow to Og's ankle, drawing out the fact that "Moses had defeated and cast out these" (Joshua 13:12), as a reminder of the victory God gave to Israel through the leadership of Moses. There are other spiritual lessons as well, that the righteous should never fear the unrighteous, for "the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the Lord" (Proverbs 21:31). The conflict of Moses questioning the assurance of victory on account of the possible transgressions of the people is a very real dynamic throughout the scriptures, reminding us to be ever cognizant that sin has consequences and may lead to defeat while at the same time affirming that God has mercy on his children and shows them favor (grace) in which they may place great confidence.

Explanatory notes:
Parasang: any of various Persian units of distance ; especially : an ancient unit of about four miles (six kilometers) from Merriam-Webster OnLine (www.m-w.com)

Amraphel: one of the four kings of the East who were allied together and ruled over the five kings of the Plain of the Jordan until the five kings rebelled (Genesis 14). The destruction of the giants is described in this passage.

(1) Legends of the Bible, Ginzberg, Louis, Konecky & Konecky under special arrangement with the Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909 (reprinted 1910, 1911, 1913, 1956).