SEV Biblia, Chapter 3:11
Porque sólo Og rey de Basán había quedado del resto de los gigantes. He aquí su cama, una cama de hierro, ¿no está en Rabá de los hijos de Amón? La longitud de ella de nueve codos, y su anchura de cuatro codos, al codo de un hombre.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 3:11
Verse 11. Og king of Bashan remained] Og was the last king of the Amorites; his kingdom appears to have taken its name from the hill of Bashan; the country has been since called Batanaea. Remnant of giants] Of the Rephaim. See on chap. ii. 10, 11.
His bedstead was-of iron] Iron was probably used partly for its strength and durability, and partly to prevent noxious vermin from harbouring in it.
Is it not in Rabbath, of the children of Ammon?] The bedstead was probably taken in some battle between the Ammonites and Amorites, in which the former had gained the victory. The bedstead was carried a trophy and placed in Rabbath, which appears, from 2 Sam. xii. 26, to have been the royal city of the children of Ammon.
Nine cubits was the length-four cubits the breadth] Allowing the bedstead to have been one cubit longer than Og, which is certainly sufficient, and allowing the cubit to be about eighteen inches long, for this is perhaps the average of the cubit of a man, then Og was twelve feet high.
This may be deemed extraordinary, and perhaps almost incredible, and therefore many commentators have, according to their fancy, lengthened the bedstead and shortened the man, making the former one-third longer than the person who lay on it, that they might reduce Og to six cubits; but even in this way they make him at least nine feet high.
On this subject the rabbins have trifled most sinfully. I shall give one specimen. In the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel on Numbers xxi. 33-35, it is said that "Og having observed that the camp of the Israelites extended six miles, he went and tore up a mountain six miles in its base, and put it on his head, and carried it towards the camp, that he might throw it on the Israelites and destroy them; but the word of the Lord prepared a worm, which bored a hole in the mountain over his head, so that it fell down upon his shoulders: at the same time his teeth growing out in all directions, stuck into the mountain, so that he could not cast it off his head. Moses, (who was himself ten cubits high,) seeing Og thus entangled, took an axe ten cubits long, and having leaped ten cubits in height, struck Og on the ankle bone, so that he fell and was slain." From this account the distance from the sole of Og's foot to his ankle was thirty cubits in length! I give this as a very slight specimen of rabbinical comment. I could quote places in the Talmud in which Og is stated to be several miles high! This relation about Og I suppose to be also an historical note added by a subsequent hand.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 11. For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants , etc.] The meaning seems to be, either that he was the only one that was left of the race of the giants the Ammonites found when they took possession of this country, ( Deuteronomy 2:20) or that was left when the Amorites took it from the Ammonites; and who having by some means or other ingratiated himself into their affections, because of his stature, strength, and courage, and other qualifications they might discern in him, made him their king: behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron : his body being so large and bulky, he might think it most proper and safest for him to have a bedstead made of iron to lie upon, or to prevent noxious insects harbouring in it; nor was it unusual to have bedsteads made of other materials than wood, as of gold, silver, and ivory; (see Gill on “ Amos 6:4”). Some learned men f41 have been of opinion, that the beds of Typho in Syria, made mention of by Homer f42 , refer to this bedstead of Og: is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon ? which was the royal city of the Ammonites, in the times of David, ( 2 Samuel 12:26), now called Philadelphia, as Jerom says f43 . This bedstead might be either sent thither by Og, before the battle at Edrei, for safety, or rather might be sold by the Israelites to the inhabitants of Rabbath, who kept it, as a great curiosity: nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man ; a common cubit, so that it was four yards and a half long, and two yards broad. Onkelos renders it, after the king’s cubit; and the king’s cubit at Babylon, according to Herodotus f44 , was larger by three fingers than the common one; such as the cubit in ( Ezekiel 40:5), which was a cubit and an hand’s breadth; and this makes the dimensions of the bedstead yet larger. And by this judgment may be made of the tallness of Og’s stature, though this is not always a sure rule to go by; for Alexander, when in India, ordered his soldiers to make beds of five cubits long, to be left behind them, that they might be thought to be larger men than they were, as Diodorus Siculus and Curtius relate; but there is little reason to believe that Og’s bedstead was made with such a view. Maimonides observes f47 , that a bed in common is a third part larger than a man; so that Og, according to this way of reckoning, was six cubits high, and his stature doubly larger than a common man’s; but less than a third part may well be allowed to a bed, which will make him taller still; the height of Og is reckoned by Wolfius to be about thirteen feet eleven inches of Paris measure.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-11 - Og was very powerful, but he did not take warning by the ruin of Sihon and desire conditions of peace. He trusted his own strength, and so wa hardened to his destruction. Those not awakened by the judgments of God on others, ripen for the like judgments on themselves.
Original Hebrew
כי 3588 רק 7535 עוג 5747 מלך 4428 הבשׁן 1316 נשׁאר 7604 מיתר 3499 הרפאים 7497 הנה 2009 ערשׂו 6210 ערשׂ 6210 ברזל 1270 הלה 3808 הוא 1931 ברבת 7237 בני 1121 עמון 5983 תשׁע 8672 אמות 520 ארכה 753 וארבע 702 אמות 520 רחבה 7341 באמת 520 אישׁ׃ 376
