Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Deuteronomy Глава 3

The different portions of the conquered land were the following: המּישׁר , the plain, i.e., the Amoritish table-land, stretching from the Arnon to Heshbon, and in a north-easterly direction nearly as far as Rabbath-Ammon, with the towns of Heshbon, Bezer, Medeba, Jahza, and Dibon (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 13:9, Joshua 13:16-17, Joshua 13:21; Joshua 20:8; Jeremiah 48:21.), which originally belonged to the Moabites, and is therefore called “the field of Moab” in Numbers 21:20. “ The whole of Gilead,” i.e., the mountainous region on the southern and northern sides of the Jabbok, which was divided into two halves by this river. The southern half, which reached to Heshbon, belonged to the kingdom of Sihon (Joshua 12:2), and was assigned by Moses to the Reubenites and Gadites (Deuteronomy 3:12); whilst the northern half, which is called “the rest of Gilead” in Deuteronomy 3:13, the modern Jebel Ajlun, extending as far as the land of Bashan (Hauran and Jaulan), belonged to the kingdom of Og (Joshua 12:5), and was assigned to the Manassite family of Machir (Deuteronomy 3:15, and Joshua 13:31; cf. v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 229, 230). “ And all Bashan unto Salcah and Edrei.” All Bashan included not only the country of Hauran (the plan and mountain), but unquestionably also the district of Jedur and Jaulan, to the west of the sea of Galilee and the upper Jordan, or the ancient Gaulonitis (Jos. Ant. xviii. 4, 6, etc.), as the kingdom of Og extended to the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi (see at Deuteronomy 3:14). Og had not conquered the whole of the land of Hauran, however, but only the greater part of it. His territory extended eastwards to Salcah, i.e., the present Szalchat or Szarchad, about six hours to the east of Bozrah, south of Jebel Hauran, a town with 800 houses, and a castle upon a basaltic rock, but uninhabited (cf. v. Raumer, Pal. p. 255); and northwards to Edrei, i.e., the northern Edrei (see at Numbers 21:33), a considerable ruin on the northwest of Bozrah, three or four English miles in extent, in the old buildings of which there are 200 families living at present (Turks, Druses, and Christians). By the Arabian geographers ( Abulfeda, Ibn Batuta) it is called Sora, by modern travellers Adra or Edra ( v. Richter), or Oezraa ( Seetzen), or Ezra ( Burckhardt), and Edhra (Robinson, App. 155). Consequently nearly the whole of Jebel Hauran, and the northern portion of the plain, viz., the Leja, were outside the kingdom of Og and the land of Bashan, of which the Israelites took possession, although Burckhardt reckons Ezra as part of the Leja.

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Even in Abraham's time, the giant tribe of Rephaim was living in Bashan (Genesis 14:5). But out of the remnant of these, king Og, whom the Israelites defeated and slew, was the only one left. For the purpose of recalling the greatness of the grace of God that had been manifested in that victory, and not merely to establish the credibility of the statements concerning the size of Og (“just as things belonging to an age that has long passed away are shown to be credible by their remains,” Spinoza, etc.), Moses points to the iron bed of this king, which was still in Rabbath-Ammon, and was nine cubits long and four broad, “after the cubit of a man,” i.e., the ordinary cubit in common use (see the analogous expression, “a man's pen,” Isaiah 8:1). הלה , for הלא , synonymous with הנּה . There is nothing to amaze is in the size of the bed or bedstead given here. The ordinary Hebrew cubit was only a foot and a half, probably only eighteen Dresden inches (see my Archäologie, ii. p. 126, Anm. 4). Now a bed is always larger than the man who sleeps in it. But in this case Clericus fancies that Og “intentionally exceeded the necessary size, in order that posterity might be led to draw more magnificent conclusions from the size of the bed, as to the stature of the man who was accustomed to sleep in it.” He also refers to the analogous case of Alexander the Great, of whom Diod. Sic. (xvii. 95) affirms, that whenever he was obliged to halt on his march to India, he made colossal arrangements of all kinds, causing, among other things, two couches to be prepared in the tents for every foot-soldier, each five cubits long, and two stalls for every horseman, twice as large as the ordinary size, “to represent a camp of heroes, and leave striking memorials behind for the inhabitants of the land, of gigantic men and their supernatural strength.” With a similar intention Og may also have left behind him a gigantic bed as a memorial of his superhuman greatness, on the occasion of some expedition of his against the Ammonites; and this bed may have been preserved in their capital as a proof of the greatness of their foe.

(Note: “It will often be found, that very tall people are disposed to make themselves appear even taller than they actually are” (Hengstenberg, Diss. ii. p. 201). Moreover, there are still giants who are eight feet high and upwards. “According to the N. Preuss. Zeit. of 1857, there came a man to Berlin 8 feet 4 inches high, and possibly still growing, as he was only twenty years old; and he was said to have a great-uncle who was nine inches taller” ( Schultz).)

Moses might then refer to this gigantic bed of Og, which was known to the Israelites; and there is no reason for resorting to the improbable conjecture, that the Ammonites had taken possession of a bed of king Og upon some expedition against the Amorites, and had carried it off as a trophy to their capital.

(Note: There is still less probability in the conjecture of J. D. Michaelis, Vater, Winer, and others, that Og's iron bed was a sarcophagus of basalt, such as are still frequently met with in those regions, as much as 9 feet long and 3 1/2 feet broad, or even as much as 12 feet long and 6 feet in breadth and height (vid., Burckhardt, pp. 220, 246; Robinson, iii. p. 385; Seetzen, i. pp. 355, 360); and the still further assumption, that the corpse of the fallen king was taken to Rabbah, and there interred in a royal way, is altogether improbable.)

“ Rabbath of the sons of Ammon,” or briefly Rabbah, i.e., the great (Joshua 13:25; 2 Samuel 11:1), was the capital of the Ammonites, afterwards called Philadelphia, probably from Ptolemaeus Philadelphus; by Polybius, Ῥαββατάμανα ; by Abulfeda, Ammân, which is the name still given to the uninhabited ruins on the Nahr Ammân, i.e., the upper Jabbok (see Burckhardt, pp. 612ff. and v. Raumer, Pal. p. 268).

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The region of Argob, or the country of Bashan, was given to Jair (see Numbers 32:41), as far as the territory of the Geshurites and Maachathites (cf. Joshua 12:5; Joshua 13:11). “ Unto,” as far as, is to be understood as inclusive. This is evident from the statement in Joshua 13:13: “The children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites nor the Maachathites; but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day.” Consequently Moses allotted the territory of these two tribes to the Manassites, because it formed part of the kingdom of Og. “ Geshuri and Maachathi ” are the inhabitants of Geshur and Maachah, two provinces which formed small independent kingdoms even in David's time (2 Samuel 3:3; 2 Samuel 13:37, and 2 Samuel 10:6). Geshur bordered on Aram. The Geshurites and Aramaeans afterwards took from the Israelites the Jair -towns and Kenath, with their daughter towns ( 1 Chronicles 2:23). In David's time Geshur had a king Thalmai, whose daughter David married. This daughter was the mother of Absalom; and it was in Geshur that Absalom lived for a time in exile (2 Samuel 3:3; 2 Samuel 13:37; 2 Samuel 14:23; 2 Samuel 15:8). The exact situation of Geshur has not yet been determined. It was certainly somewhere near Hermon, on the eastern side of the upper Jordan, and by a bridge over the Jordan, as Geshur signifies bridge in all the Semitic dialects. Maachah, which is referred to in 1 Chronicles 19:6 as a kingdom under the name of Aram-Maachah (Eng. V. Syria-Maachah), is probably to be sought for to the north-east of Geshur. According to the Onomast. ( s. v. Μαχαθί ), it was in the neighbourhood of the Hermon. “ And he called them (the towns of the region of Argob) after his own name; Bashan (sc., he called) Havvoth Jair unto this day ” (cf. Numbers 32:41). The word חוּת ( Havvoth), which only occurs in connection with the Jair -towns, does not mean towns or camps of a particular kind, viz., tent villages, as some suppose, but is the plural of חוּה , life ( Leben, a common German termination, e.g., Eisleben), for which afterwards the word חיּה was used (comp. 2 Samuel 23:13 with 1 Chronicles 11:15). It applies to any kind of dwelling-place, being used in the passages just mentioned to denote even a warlike encampment. The Jair's-lives ( Jairsleben) were not a particular class of towns, therefore, in the district of Argob, but Jair gave this collective name to all the sixty fortified towns, as is perfectly evident from the verse before us when compared with Deuteronomy 3:5 and Numbers 32:41, and expressly confirmed by Joshua 13:30 and 1 Kings 4:13, where the sixty fortified towns of the district of Argob are called Havvoth Jair. - The statement in 1 Chronicles 2:22-23, that “ Jair had twenty-three towns in Gilead (which is used here as in Deuteronomy 34:1; Joshua 22:9; Joshua 13:15; Judges 5:17; Judges 20:1, to denote the whole of Palestine to the east of the Jordan), and Geshur and Aram took the Havvoth Jair from them, (and) Kenath and its daughters, sixty towns (sc., in all),” is by no means at variance with this, but, on the contrary, in the most perfect harmony with it. For it is evident from this passage, that the twenty-three Havvoth Jair, with Kenath and its daughters, formed sixty towns altogether. The distinction between the twenty-three Havvoth Jair and the other thirty-seven towns, viz., Kenath and its daughters, is to be explained from the simple fact that, according to Numbers 32:42, Nobah, no doubt a family of sons of Machir related to Jair, conquered Kenath and its daughters, and called the conquered towns by his name, namely, when they had been allotted to him by Moses. Consequently Bashan, or the region of Argob, with its sixty fortified towns, was divided between two of the leading families of Machir the Manassite, viz., the families of Jair and Nobah, each family receiving the districts which it had conquered, together with their towns; namely, the family of Nobah, Kenath and its daughter towns, or the eastern portion of Bashan; and the family of Jair, twenty-three towns in the west, which are called Havvoth Jair in 1 Chronicles 2:23, in harmony with Numbers 32:41, where Jair is said to have given this name to the towns which were conquered by him. In the address before us, however, in which Moses had no intention to enter into historical details, all the (sixty) towns of the whole district of Argob, or the whole of Bashan, are comprehended under the name of Havvoth Jair, probably because Nobah was a subordinate branch of the family of Jair, and the towns conquered by him were under the supremacy of Jair. The expression “unto this day” certainly does not point to a later period than the Mosaic age. This definition of time is simply a relative one. It does not necessarily presuppose a very long duration, and here it merely serves to bring out the marvellous change which was due to the divine grace, viz., that the sixty fortified towns of the giant king Og of Bashan had now become Jair's lives.

(Note: The conquest of these towns, in fact, does not seem to have been of long duration, and the possession of them by the Israelites was a very disputed one (cf. 1 Chronicles 2:22-23). In the time of the judges we find thirty in the possession of the judge Jair (Judges 10:4), which caused the old name Havvoth Jair to be revived.)

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