Deuteronomy 3:5

"All these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; besides the unwalled towns a great many. 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. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey unto ourselves. And we took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon unto mount Hermon (which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Ammonites call it Senir); all the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, unto Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man)."

"Fortified with high walls ..." "The ruins of these cities remain until this day."[4] Cook gave the literal meaning of the Hebrew in Deuteronomy 3:5 as "with double gates and a bar."[5] "The height of the stone doors of Bashan point to a race of great stature, and numerous deserted cities (now in ruins) illustrate the statements of these verses.

Davies' comment on the first seven verses here is an amazing commentary on the inconsistency of critics. He said: "A shorter account of the victory over Og occurs in Numbers 21:33-35. It is based on the present (longer) passage!"[6] But, in the N.T., it is the invariable claim of critics that the shorter passage is the original. It is by this dictum that they make Mark the original Gospel. As a matter of fact, there is no dependence whatever to be put in such rules of interpretation.

The several names of Mount Hermon are of interest. These different names might all refer to the great snow covered peak that terminates the Anti-Lebanon range, or they could be names of different peaks, of which there are several, that make up this spectacular range of mountains in the vicinity of Hermon. "It is not so much one high mountain as a whole cluster of mountain peaks, the highest in Palestine, several near 9,000 feet in altitude, and the largest going past 9,200 feet."[7]

All of the names mentioned here could easily apply to Hermon.

"Sirion ..." "This means, glittering like a polished shield, and corresponds, therefore, to the name Mount Blanc."[8] "In Deuteronomy 4:48, Hermon is called Sion, which means the same thing."[9] "Senir (Deuteronomy 3:9) has the meaning of `coat of mail.'"[10] All of these names appear to be descriptive of the brilliant snow-capped mountain that shines perpetually in northern Palestine.

"His bedstead was a bedstead of iron ..." (Deuteronomy 3:11), and the dimensions are also given. Taking a cubit as 18 inches, the bedstead measured 13.5 feet 10:6 inches. This was cited by Moses as an indication of the stature of the mighty Og. Scholars are sharply divided over the question of whether "bedstead" is the right translation, many giving preference to "sarcophagus." It appears to us that the size of the crypt, cave, or sarcophagus in which a man might have been buried would be no reliable indicator of his size. Several people could enter the grave of Jesus. This and other reasons persuade us to honor our own version (ASV) here and read it as "bedstead." One thing that raises some question is the meaning of the word rendered "iron." "It not only means `iron', but also that black basalt stone which is in reality iron ore with an 80% iron content."[11] The words of Alexander on this are: "A sarcophagus affords no measure whatever of the size of the person whose remains were placed in it."[12]

Even Von Rad could not swallow the popular fad of changing "bedstead" to "sarcophagus" here, pointing out that, "It can hardly have been originally a sarcophagus in view of its length (about fourteen feet), for it is more than double the length of the famous sarcophagus of Ahiram of Byblus."[13] Oberst observed that, "Sarcophagus is a very unlikely rendition. Israel did not have great `funeral services' (let alone elaborate coffins) for the heathen kings it defeated."[14] More important than settling a question such as this is the implication that Moses wrote this passage (along with all the rest of the Pentateuch). Nobody can even suggest any motive whatever that could have prompted anybody else to have written it.