Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Deuteronomy 3:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The Help of God in the Conquest of the Kingdom of Og of Bashan. - Deu 3:1. After the defeat of king Sihon and the conquest of his land, the Israelites were able to advance to the Jordan. But as the powerful Amoritish king Og still held the northern half of Gilead and all Bashan, they proceeded northwards at once and took the road to Bashan, that they might also defeat this king, whom the Lord had likewise given into their hand, and conquer his country (cf. Num 21:33-34). They smote him at Edrei, the modern Dra, without leaving him even a remnant; and took all his towns, i.e., as is here more fully stated in Deu 3:4., "sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan." These three definitions refer to one and the same country. The whole region of Argob included the sixty towns which formed the kingdom of Og in Bashan, i.e., all the towns of the land of Bashan, viz., (according to Deu 3:5) all the fortified towns, besides the unfortified and open country towns of Bashan. חבל, the chain for measuring, then the land or country measured with the chain. The name "region of Argob," which is given to the country of Bashan here, and in Deu 3:4, Deu 3:13, Deu 3:14, and also in Kg1 4:13, is probably derived from רגוב, stone-heaps, related to רגב, a clump or clod of earth ( Job 21:33; Job 38:38). The Targumists have rendered it correctly טרכונא (Trachona), from τραθών, a rough, uneven, stony district, so called from the basaltic hills of Hauran; just as the plain to the east of Jebel Hauran, which resembles Hauran itself, is sometimes called Tellul, from its tells or hills (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 173). (Note: The derivation is a much more improbable one, "from the town of Argob, πρὸς Γέρασαν πόλιν Ἀραβίας, according to the Onomast., fifteen Roman miles to the west of Gerasa, which is called Ῥαγαβᾶ by Josephus (Ant. xiii. 15, 5).") This district has also received the name of Bashan, from the character of its soil; for בּשׁן signifies a soft and level soil. From the name given to it by the Arabic translators, the Greek name Βαταναία, Batanaea, and possibly also the modern name of the country on the north-eastern slope of Hauran at the back of Mount Hauran, viz., Bethenije, are derived. The name Argob probably originated in the north-eastern part of the country of Bashan, viz., the modern Leja, with its stony soil covered with heaps of large blocks of stone (Burckhardt, p. 196), or rather in the extensive volcanic region to the east of Hauran, which was first of all brought to distinct notice in Wetzstein's travels, and of which he says that the "southern portion, bearing the name Harra, is thickly covered with loose volcanic stones, with a few conical hills among them, that have been evidently caused by eruptions" (Wetzstein, p. 6). The central point of the whole is Safa, "a mountain nearly seven hours' journey in length and about the same in breadth," in which "the black mass streaming from the craters piled itself up wave upon wave, so that the centre attained to the height of a mountain, without acquiring the smoothness of form observable in mountains generally," - "the black flood of lava being full of innumerable streams of stony waves, often of a bright red colour, bridged over with thin arches, which rolled down the slopes out of the craters and across the high plateau" (Wetzstein, pp. 6 and 7). At a later period this name was transferred to the whole of the district of Hauran (= Bashan), because not only is the Jeb…
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