Deuteronomy 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses continues the account of Israel's recent past: they defeated Og king of Bashan and took his sixty walled cities, destroying the people and keeping the livestock and goods. Moses then describes how he divided this land east of the Jordan among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, on the condition that their fighting men cross the river ahead of the other tribes. He tells Joshua that the LORD will fight for Israel, and reports that when he asked to cross the Jordan himself, the LORD refused and told him to view the land from the top of Pisgah and to commission Joshua instead.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The people turned and went up by the road toward Bashan.
   • Og king of Bashan came out to meet them in battle.
   • Og came out with all his people.
   • The battle took place at Edrei.
2. 3:2
   • The LORD said to Moses not to fear Og.
   • The LORD said he had given Og into Moses' hand.
   • The LORD said he had given all Og's people into Moses' hand.
   • The LORD said he had given Og's land into Moses' hand.
   • The LORD said Moses would do to Og as he did to Sihon king of the Amorites.
   • Sihon king of the Amorites dwelt at Heshbon.
3. 3:3
   • The LORD their God delivered Og king of Bashan into their hands as well.
   • The LORD delivered all Og's people into their hands.
   • They struck him down until no survivor was left to him.
4. 3:4
   • They captured all of Og's cities at that time.
   • There was no town they did not take from them.
   • The cities numbered sixty.
   • The cities comprised the whole region of Argob.
   • Argob was the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
5. 3:5
   • All these cities were fortified with a high wall.
   • All these cities had gates and a bar.
   • There were also very many unwalled towns besides these.
6. 3:6
   • They devoted the cities to destruction.
   • They did to them as they had done to Sihon king of Heshbon.
   • They utterly destroyed the men of every city.
   • They utterly destroyed the women of every city.
   • They utterly destroyed the children of every city.
7. 3:7
   • They took all the livestock as plunder for themselves.
   • They took the spoil of the cities as plunder for themselves.
8. 3:8
   • At that time they took the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites.
   • That land was across the Jordan.
   • The land extended from the valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon.
9. 3:9
   • The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion.
   • The Amorites call Hermon Senir.
10. 3:10
    • The territory included all the cities of the tableland.
    • The territory included all Gilead.
    • The territory included all Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei.
    • Salecah and Edrei were cities of Og's kingdom in Bashan.
11. 3:11
    • Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim.
    • Og's bedstead was a bedstead of iron.
    • The bedstead is in Rabbah of the Ammonites.
    • The bedstead was nine cubits long.
    • The bedstead was four cubits wide.
    • The measurement was by the common cubit of a man.
12. 3:12
    • They took possession of this land at that time.
    • The land began from Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon.
    • Moses gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites half the hill country of Gilead and its cities.
13. 3:13
    • Moses gave the rest of Gilead to the half tribe of Manasseh.
    • Moses gave all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, to the half tribe of Manasseh.
    • The whole region of Argob with all Bashan was called the land of the Rephaim.
14. 3:14
    • Jair son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob.
    • Argob extended to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites.
    • Jair named those places in Bashan after his own name, Havvoth-jair.
    • That name remains to this day.
15. 3:15
    • Moses gave Gilead to Machir.
16. 3:16
    • Moses gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory from Gilead to the valley of Arnon.
    • The middle of the valley was the border.
    • The territory extended to the river Jabbok.
    • The Jabbok was the border of the Ammonites.
17. 3:17
    • The territory included the Arabah and the Jordan as a border.
    • It extended from Chinnereth to the sea of the Arabah.
    • The sea of the Arabah is the Salt Sea.
    • It lay below the slopes of Pisgah on the east.
18. 3:18
    • Moses commanded the people at that time.
    • Moses said the LORD their God had given them this land to possess it.
    • Moses said they were to cross over armed ahead of their brothers the Israelites.
    • Moses said all the able-bodied men were to cross over.
19. 3:19
    • Moses said their wives, children, and livestock were to remain behind.
    • Moses said he knew they had much livestock.
    • Moses said they should stay in the cities he had given them.
20. 3:20
    • They were to stay until the LORD gave rest to their brothers as he had to them.
    • They were to stay until their brothers also possessed the land the LORD their God was giving them across the Jordan.
    • Then each man was to return to the possession Moses had given them.
21. 3:21
    • Moses commanded Joshua at that time.
    • Moses said Joshua's own eyes had seen all the LORD their God did to these two kings.
    • Moses said the LORD would do the same to all the kingdoms Joshua was about to cross into.
22. 3:22
    • Moses said they should not fear those kingdoms.
    • Moses said the LORD their God himself would fight for them.
23. 3:23
    • Moses pleaded with the LORD at that time.
24. 3:24
    • Moses addressed the LORD as Lord GOD.
    • Moses said the LORD had begun to show his servant his greatness.
    • Moses said the LORD had begun to show his servant his strong hand.
    • Moses asked what god in heaven or on earth could do according to the LORD's works and mighty acts.
25. 3:25
    • Moses asked to cross over.
    • Moses asked to see the good land beyond the Jordan.
    • Moses named that good hill country and Lebanon.
26. 3:26
    • The LORD was angry with Moses on account of the people.
    • The LORD would not listen to Moses.
    • The LORD told Moses that it was enough for him.
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to him no more about this matter.
27. 3:27
    • The LORD told Moses to go up to the top of Pisgah.
    • The LORD told Moses to lift his eyes west, north, south, and east.
    • The LORD told Moses to see it with his eyes.
    • The LORD said Moses would not cross this Jordan.
28. 3:28
    • The LORD told Moses to commission Joshua.
    • The LORD told Moses to encourage Joshua.
    • The LORD told Moses to strengthen Joshua.
    • The LORD said Joshua would cross over ahead of this people.
    • The LORD said Joshua would cause them to inherit the land Moses would see.
29. 3:29
    • They stayed in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

Bashan was the fertile upland region east of the Sea of Galilee, proverbial in Hebrew for its cattle, oaks and rich pasture. Edrei was a city on its southern edge. Israel is traveling north up the eastern side of the Jordan, outside the land it is heading for.

3:2

The Amorites were one of the peoples living in Canaan and in the territory east of the Jordan before Israel arrived; the name is used both for a specific group and loosely for the earlier inhabitants generally. Sihon's defeat at Heshbon is the campaign described just before this, in chapter 2.

3:3

"Smote" is simply the past tense of smite in 1611 English, meaning struck down or defeated in battle. It carries no extra sense of divine punishment on its own.

3:4

"Threescore" in the King James is simply sixty (a score is twenty). Argob was a district inside Bashan, apparently its heartland.

3:5

The "bars" were heavy timber beams dropped into brackets across the inside of the city gates. Walls, gates and bars together are the standard shorthand in Hebrew for a fortified town, as opposed to the open villages mentioned next.

3:6

"Utterly destroyed" translates the Hebrew term *herem*: to place something under an irrevocable ban, handing it over entirely and withholding it from ordinary human use or profit. It is a specific technical term of ancient warfare in this region, not a general word for killing; the following verse notes that in this case the livestock and goods were exempted from it.

3:7

"Prey" here means plunder, the goods and animals carried off from a defeated enemy, not an animal being hunted. "Cattle" in the King James means livestock in general: sheep, goats, donkeys and oxen, not just cows.

3:8

The Arnon is a deep gorge running west into the Dead Sea; it served as a recognized boundary line. Mount Hermon, at the far northern end of the territory, rises over 9,000 feet and is snow-capped for much of the year. Naming the two together is a way of saying "the whole stretch, end to end."

3:9

Sidon was a Phoenician port on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The verse is a note by the writer for readers who might know the mountain under one of its other names, neighboring peoples called the same peak different things.

3:10

The Hebrew word behind "cities of the plain" refers specifically to the high, level tableland east of the Jordan, not to lowland. Gilead was the hilly country between the Arnon and Bashan.

3:11

The Rephaim were remembered in Hebrew tradition as an earlier population of unusual size; the King James translates the name as "giants." A cubit was roughly eighteen inches, about the length of a forearm, so the object described is about thirteen feet long and six feet wide. "After the cubit of a man" means measured by the ordinary everyday cubit rather than a longer royal one. The Hebrew word rendered "bedstead" or "bed" can mean a bed or a bier, and many readers have taken this to be a large basalt sarcophagus on display in Rabbah rather than furniture. Rabbah was the chief city of the Ammonites, on the site of modern Amman.

3:12

Reuben and Gad were two of the twelve tribes of Israel, each descended from a son of Jacob. They are being settled here on the eastern side of the Jordan, outside the land the rest of the nation is about to enter.

3:13

Manasseh's descendants were split between the two sides of the Jordan, which is why the text speaks of a "half tribe", half of the tribe's clans settled here in the east, the rest later took land west of the river.

3:14

Havvoth-jair means "the tent-villages of Jair." The Geshurites and Maacathites were small independent kingdoms on the north-eastern frontier. "Unto this day" is the writer speaking to his own readers: the name was still in use when the account was written down.

3:15

Machir was the leading clan of the tribe of Manasseh, named after Manasseh's son; giving land "to Machir" means giving it to that whole family group, not to one man.

3:16

The Jabbok is a river flowing west into the Jordan. Saying the border ran through "the middle of the valley" means the boundary followed the streambed at the bottom of the gorge, so each side held the slope facing it. The Ammonites were a neighboring nation east of the Jordan whose territory Israel was not to take.

3:17

Chinnereth is the lake later called the Sea of Galilee. The Arabah is the deep rift valley running south from it. The "Salt Sea" is the Dead Sea, so saline that nothing lives in it. Pisgah is the ridge overlooking the valley from the east.

3:18

The arrangement is that Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh keep the land already taken east of the river, but their fighting men must still cross the Jordan and campaign alongside the other tribes before going home.

3:19

"Little ones" means young children. Together with the wives and the herds, they are the part of the household that stays behind while the men campaign.

3:20

"Rest" here is not sleep or leisure but the settled condition on the far side of a war: enemies subdued, land occupied, no further campaigning necessary.

3:21

Joshua was Moses' helper. He would lead the people after Moses died.

3:23

"Besought" means begged or pleaded earnestly. It is stronger than simply asking.

3:24

In the King James, "LORD" and "GOD" printed in capitals stand for the personal name of Israel's God, which the translators did not spell out; "Lord" in ordinary type is the separate word meaning master. This verse pairs the two, which is why it looks repetitive. "Thy mighty hand" is a standard Hebrew idiom for power exercised in action, not a description of a body.

3:25

"That goodly mountain" is the hill country running down the middle of Canaan, the central spine of the land. Lebanon is the mountain range at its northern end.

3:26

"For your sakes" means on your account, because of what you did, not for your benefit. The incident being referred to is told in Numbers 20, where Moses is barred from entering the land after the quarrel over water at Meribah.

3:27

Pisgah is a headland on the ridge east of the Dead Sea, high enough to see a great sweep of the country west of the Jordan. Looking in all four directions is a recognized gesture for surveying and formally taking in a territory.

3:28

To "charge" someone here means to commission them formally and publicly, a legal act of handing over authority in front of witnesses, not simply giving instructions.

3:29

Beth-peor was a place in Moab associated with the local god worshiped at Peor. Naming the camp site locates the whole of Moses' long speech in Deuteronomy at one spot, just east of the Jordan.