When we say that someone was a giant - how often do we mean it literally? As in - the ones who tower over us in physical or other ways? And did some actual super size beings exist in history, including the famous one that Moses killed on the Hebraic victory tour towards the promised land? Rr is Torah trying to cover up some super size secret that is just too big to hide?
Generations have been puzzled about the giant king slain in this chapter and the iconic super king size bed he’d left behind, apparently as a museum piece. Why is it even mentioned? After detailing the conquest of the Amorite kings and the takeover of their lands on the east of the Jordan river, Moses adds this weird note:
כִּ֣י רַק־ע֞וֹג מֶ֣לֶךְ הַבָּשָׁ֗ן נִשְׁאַר֮ מִיֶּ֣תֶר הָרְפָאִים֒ הִנֵּ֤ה עַרְשׂוֹ֙ עֶ֣רֶשׂ בַּרְזֶ֔ל הֲלֹ֣ה הִ֔וא בְּרַבַּ֖ת בְּנֵ֣י עַמּ֑וֹן תֵּ֧שַׁע אַמּ֣וֹת אׇרְכָּ֗הּ וְאַרְבַּ֥ע אַמּ֛וֹת רׇחְבָּ֖הּ בְּאַמַּת־אִֽישׁ׃
Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remaining Rephaim. His iron bed, is now in Rabbah of the Ammonites; it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide, by the standard cubit.” Dv 3:11
An iron bed that’s 14 feet long and 6 feet wide is indeed impressive, esp for the bronze age, when iron was still rare and quite expensive, but what’s the purpose of this note?
Og the King of Bashan is mentioned 22 times in the Hebrew Bible - quite the popular hero, often referred to as a giant, heir to the ancient ancestors who roamed the earth. Some traditions claim he is the last of the fallen angels, and the only one except for Noah and his family to survive the flood - by riding on the outside of the ark. According to Midrash he fought the Hebrews and tore out a mountain to throw it at them, but Moses struck him on his ankle and toppled the celebrity giant down.
Does this myth hint at some pre historical distortion? The bed may be a clue.
Some scholars claim that this is not a bed but actually a grave, or a sarcophagus made of basalt with decorations of iron. The Hebrew for bed used here “eres’ does indeed sometimes get used as a burial place. Was this a royal tomb? Biblical scholar A. R. Millard Millard preferes to frame the bed frame in an ancient Near Eastern context, literally a regal bed adorned with iron: "The special emphasis on iron is explained by the historical background of the notice: In the Late Bronze Age iron was still a rather rare metal from the Israelite perspective, evoking the supposed force of invincible weapons.” The reference to the bed here is then triumphant boast, with a touch of irony.
The most fascinating suggestion, first published by P. Karge in 1917, speculates that Og's bed was a prehistoric dolmen, one of the megalithic tombs which are typical of the Transjordanian area and have intrigued visitors and scientists for many generations.
20th century scholarship also offered some new proof that Og the Giant King indeed existed - but not a flesh and blood but as one of the Giants of the Underworld.
He is mentioned by name in Phoenician inscriptions as "a legendary-mythological hero," a "representative or patron of the heroes of the Underworld." A Phoenician coffin from the sixth or fifth century BCE contains the warning that "Mighty Og will take revenge" on one who violates the tomb. He was possibly deified and given the role of a protector of tombs, and possibly functioned as the local deity of Rabbath Ammon.
Could the ‘bedrock’ supposedly displayed there be an ancient cultic object indicating the presence of invisible giants in all realms, leaving an impression upon all generations, including the Hebrew conquerors. of the footprint of his giant mythic memory?
We may never know. Og the Giant will remain a riddle. And the bed? An invitation to stretch our mind beyond the facts and into fabulous fictions that may contain a kernel of the larger than life (as we know it) truth.
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