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Kings Og’s Iron Bed

Fact or fancy?

By Alan R. Millard

In Moses’ famous speech that comprises most of Deuteronomy, he describes the Israelite conquest of two kingdoms east of the Jordan—Heshbon, led by a king named Sihon, and Bashan, led by a king named Og. King Og alone survived— “Only Og the King of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim” (Deuteronomy 3:11). Then we are told that King Og had a bed of iron that is displayed in Rabbah of the Ammonites. It was a very big bed: “His iron bed is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, […]

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Endnotes

1.

See the standard Bible dictionaries under “Weights and Measures”; also Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 196–198.

2.

The word translated as giant in 2 Samuel 21:16, 18, 20 and 1 Chronicles 20:4, 6, 8, is rapha’ (plural: rephaim). In Deuteronomy 3:13 we are told Bashan is the land of the Rephaim, often translated as land of the giants. In Deuteronomy 3:1 “Rephaim” is also translated as giants, for example, in the King James Version. See André Caquot, “Rephaim,” Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris: Latouzey &: Ané 1981), fasc. 55, cols. 344–57, for opinions on the Rephaim.

3.

According to S.R. Driver it was J.D. Michaelis who gave birth to the idea that eres here might denote a sarcophagus, rather than a bed. See Driver, Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary; Edinburgh: Clark, 1902), p. 52.

4.

Drivel; Deuteronomy, p. 54.

5.

Driver noted one near Tyre which was 12 feet long and 6 feet wide and high.

6.

G.A. Smith, The Book of Deuteronomy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1918), p. 49.

7.

Martin Noth, The History of Israel(London: A. and C. Black, 1958), p. 160 n. 1, Roland de Vaux, The Early History of Israel(London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 1978), p. 567.

8.

Chicago Prism III 43. For the text in transliteration, see R. Borger, Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke, 2nd ed. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Inst., 1979), p. 75.

9.

Sargon’s Eighth Campaign, line 388, F. Thureau-Dan, Une relation de la huitieme campagne de Sargon (Paris: Geuthner, 1912); edited by W Mayer, “Sargon’s Feldzuge gegen Urartu—714 v. Chr. Text und Ubersetzung,’ Mitteilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft 115 (1983), pp. 65–132. On the treasure taken, see Mayer, “Die Finanzierung einer Kampagne (TCL 3, 346–410),” Ugarit-Forschungen 11 (1979), pp. 571–599.

10.

Vassilios Karageorghis, Excavations in the Necropalis of Salamis III (Nicosia, Cyprus: Dept. of Antiquities of Cyprus, 1973), pp. 87–97.

11.

Traces of an iron foundry have been found in the Late Bronze Age palace at Kamid el-Loz, ancient Kamidu, at the southern end of the Beqa in Lebanon. See B. Fisch, G. Mansfeld, WR. Thiele, Kamid el-Loz 6. Die Werkstatten der spätbronzezeitlichen Paläste(Bonn: Habelt, 1985). For other evidence, see P.R.S. Moorey, Materials and Manufacture in Ancient Mesopotamia, the Evidence of Archaeology and Art (Oxford: British Archaeological Reserves ports, 1983), pp. 93–96.

12.

See C. Zaccagnini, “KBo I 14 e il ‘Monopolio’ hittita del ferro,” Rivista degli Studi Orientale 45 (1970), pp. 11–20.

13.

T. Ozguc, “An Ivory Box and a Stone Mould from Acemhoyuk” Belleten 40 (1976), pp. 555–560.

14.

See Hans G. Guterbock, “Hittite Historiography: A Survey,” History, Historiography and Interpretation, ed. Haim Tadmor and Moshe Weinfeld Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983), pp. 22–25; E. Neu, Der Anitta-Text (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974).

15.

A.D.H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (London: Oliphants, 1979), p. 144; H.D. Preus, Deuteronomium (Darrnstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982).