Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 3
Charles Ellicott Commentary
Deuteronomy 3
Charles Ellicott Commentary
Deuteronomy 3
"Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, unto battle at Edrei." — Deuteronomy 3:1 (ASV)
Then. —In the Hebrew, a simple And. The history of this movement is given in Numbers 21:32-33. For Edrei, see Numbers 21:33, from which this whole verse is repeated.
"And Jehovah said unto me, Fear him not; for I have delivered him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon." — Deuteronomy 3:2 (ASV)
And the Lord said unto me... —This verse repeats Numbers 21:34.
For I will deliver him should rather be read as follows: for into thy hand have I delivered him.
"And we took all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we took not from them; threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; besides the unwalled towns a great many." — Deuteronomy 3:4-5 (ASV)
These details are not given in Numbers. Professor Porter, in the Griant Cities of Bashan, has well described the impression made upon him by verifying this description in detail. “The whole of Bashan,” he says, “is not larger than an ordinary English county.” That “sixty walled cities, ‘besides unwalled towns a great many,’” should exist in a small province, at such a remote age, far from the sea, with no rivers and little commerce, appeared to be inexplicable.
“Inexplicable, mysterious though it appeared, it was true. On the spot, with my own eyes, I had now verified it. A list of more than one hundred ruined cities and villages, situated in these mountains alone, I had in my hands; and on the spot I had tested it, and found it accurate, though not complete.” Many of the cities in the mountains are not ruins. Rooms, doors, bars are intact to this day. The region of Argob is distinctly marked out by its natural boundaries, and well described by the same writer.
"And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones." — Deuteronomy 3:6 (ASV)
We utterly destroyed them. —Devoted them, made them chêrem, as above (Deuteronomy 2:34).
"([which] Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir;)" — Deuteronomy 3:9 (ASV)
Sirion. —(Sion, Deuteronomy 4:48) Sirion, or Shirion, and Shenir, are thought to have similar meanings. But the Targum interprets Shenir as the “rock of snow.” Shirion, according to Gesenius, means “glittering like a breastplate.”
It would not be safe to assert that the mention of the Sidonian name of Hermon makes this verse an addition after Israel was in Palestine, though it might be so. The Jewish commentator Rashi points out that, including the name Sion (Deuteronomy 4:48), “this mountain has four names. Why mention them? To declare the praise of the land of Israel, which had four kingdoms glorifying themselves in it, and each of them saying, ‘It is called after my name!’”
But there are several notes of this kind in the Pentateuch (Genesis 31:47; Numbers 13:22).
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