{"id":49502,"date":"2019-02-15T07:04:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T05:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=49502"},"modified":"2022-09-08T17:29:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T14:29:53","slug":"og-and-other-giants-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/og-and-other-giants-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Og And Other Giants \u2013 Then And Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our chapter describes in detail the battle at Edrei, east of the Kinnert (Sea of Galilee). Moses recalls how he and the Israelites had there defeated Og, the king of Bashan and his forces (Deuteronomy 3:1-14, Numbers 21:33). Og is described as having \u201cremained from 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\u201d (verse 11).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rephaim were an ancient race of giants and Bashan, the area over which King Og ruled, was called \u201cthe land of the Rephaim\u201d (verse 13). The biblical reference to Og\u2019s \u201cbedstead of iron\u201d, roughly 12 feet long and 6 feet wide, still on display in Rabbat-Amon in the days of the Deuteronomist, provided an irresistible stimulus to the vivid imagination of the Sages. According to Rabbinic Aggadah (see Legends of the Jews, III.5, pp. 98-103), the giant Og needed a bed and chairs of iron because no furniture of wood would support his tremendous weight. Every day he devoured 1000 oxen and an equivalent amount of drink. According to the second-century Rabbinic Sage and grave-digger, Abba Shaul, Og\u2019s thighbone alone was over three parsangs (roughly one mile) in length (compare Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed 2:47). <\/span><\/p>\n

The cities founded by Og were surrounded by \u201chigh walls\u201d (see Deuteronomy 3:5), that were sixty miles or more in height! On the morning that Moses approached the city he was about to attack, he first thought he saw through a new wall that had been built overnight. But as the mists cleared, he realized what he was looking at was King Og, sitting on the existing wall of his city, with his feet touching the ground below. So how could Moses possibly overcome a giant of such enormous proportions? According to the Babylonian Talmud (Berakhot 54b), Og uprooted a mountain and carried it on his head to hurl it upon the Israelite camp (reflected also in Islamic traditions about \u2018Uj ibn \u2018Unaq). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Holy One, blessed be He, sent ants who bored a hole in this enormous rock, so that it sank around Og\u2019s neck. When he tried to pull off this proverbial \u201cmillstone around his neck\u201d, his teeth projected on each side. When Og had been immobilized in this way, Moses took an axe ten cubits (about 15 feet) long, leapt into the air the equivalent of his own height of ten cubits, managed to strike the giant on his ankle, and thus, felled and killed him.<\/span><\/p>\n

May it be God\u2019s will that we have the wisdom, agility and might of Moses, in his day, to deal with the geopolitical \u201cgiants\u201d we face in our day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImage: Zakariya al-Qazwini, 1717, <\/span>The Demon ‘Uj ibn ‘Unuq Carries a Mountain with which to Kill Moses and His Men<\/span> – Walters Art Museum, commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=18853875 <\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":49503,"id":49503,"title":"Dt3-Bregman-Uj_ibn_'Unuq","filename":"Dt3-Bregman-Uj_ibn_Unuq-e1550207026426.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Dt3-Bregman-Uj_ibn_Unuq-e1550207026426.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/og-and-other-giants-then-and-now\/dt3-bregman-uj_ibn_unuq\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt3-bregman-uj_ibn_unuq","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":49502,"date":"2019-02-15 05:03:11","modified":"2019-02-15 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