Deuteronomy 6:1 “This is the command — the prescriptions and rules – Yahveh your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and take possession of.
Deuteronomy 6:2 Do this so that you may fear Yahveh your God all the days of your life by watching all his prescriptions[1] and commands. I am commanding you, your son, and your grandson so that you may have a long life.
Deuteronomy 6:3 Listen, Israel, and be careful to follow them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly, because Yahveh, the God of your fathers, has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deuteronomy 6:4 “Listen, Israel: Yahveh our God, Yahveh is one.
Deuteronomy 6:5 Care about Yahveh your God with all your heart, with all your throat, and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:6 These words that I am commanding you today are to be in your heart.
Deuteronomy 6:7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you are lying down[2] and when you are getting up.
Deuteronomy 6:8 Tie them as a sign onto your hand and let them be a symbol between your eyes.
Deuteronomy 6:9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and your city gates.
Deuteronomy 6:10 “When Yahveh your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you – a land with large and good cities that you did not build,
Deuteronomy 6:11 houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, wells that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant– and when you eat and are satisfied,
Deuteronomy 6:12 be careful or else you will forget Yahveh who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
Deuteronomy 6:13 Fear Yahveh your God, worship him and take your oaths in his name.
Deuteronomy 6:14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you,
Deuteronomy 6:15 because Yahveh your God, who is among you, is a jealous God. Otherwise, Yahveh, your God’s nose will burn[3] at you and exterminate you from the face of the land.
Deuteronomy 6:16 Do not test Yahveh your God like you tested him at Massah.
Deuteronomy 6:17 Carefully observe the commands of Yahveh your God, the reminders and prescriptions he has commanded you.
Deuteronomy 6:18 Do what is right and good in Yahveh’s sight, so that you may prosper and so that you may enter and take possession of the good land Yahveh your God swore to give your fathers,
Deuteronomy 6:19 by pushing away[4] all your enemies before you, as Yahveh has said.
Deuteronomy 6:20 “When your son asks you in the future, and this is what they say: ‘What is the meaning of the reminders, prescriptions, and rules that Yahveh our God has commanded you? ‘
Deuteronomy 6:21 tell him, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but Yahveh brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.
Deuteronomy 6:22 Before our eyes Yahveh inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household,
Deuteronomy 6:23 but he brought us from there in order to lead us in and give us the land that he swore to our fathers.
Deuteronomy 6:24 Yahveh commanded us to follow all these prescriptions and to fear Yahveh our God for our good always and that we may stay alive, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 6:25 Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands in the sight of Yahveh our God, like he has commanded us.’
“The fundamental truth has to do with the nature of God as one (v. 4); the fundamental duty is the response of love which God requires of man (v. 5). Both themes are taken up in the teaching of Jesus.”
Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 168.
“As the heart of Israel’s faith and confession, the Shema at 6:4–5 extends the first two commandments in particular (5:6–10), giving essential expression to Israel’s covenant faith. As such, the Shema can be understood as both a statement about Yahweh’s uniqueness (as an answer to the question, ‘Who is our “one and only” God?’ = Yahweh), and also Israel’s response to this uniqueness implied in the translation ‘alone’.”
Woods, Edward J.. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Book 5) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Deuteronomy 5:1 Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Israel, listen to the prescriptions and rules I am proclaiming as you hear them today. Learn and watch them carefully.
Deuteronomy 5:2 Yahveh our God established a covenant with us at Horeb.
Deuteronomy 5:3 Yahveh did not establish this covenant with our fathers, but with all of us who are alive here today.
Deuteronomy 5:4 Yahveh spoke to you face to face from the fire on the mountain.
Deuteronomy 5:5 At that time, I was standing between Yahveh and you to report the word of Yahveh to you because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain. And this is what he said:
Deuteronomy 5:6 I am Yahveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
Deuteronomy 5:7 Do not have other gods besides me.
Deuteronomy 5:8 Do not make an idol for yourself in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the land below or in the water under the land.
Deuteronomy 5:9 Do not bow in worship to them and do not serve them, because I, Yahveh your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ violation[1] to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
Deuteronomy 5:10 but showing faithful care to a thousand generations of those who care about me and watch my commands.
Deuteronomy 5:11 Do not misuse the name of Yahveh your God, because Yahveh will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name.
Deuteronomy 5:12 Be careful to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it sacred[2] like Yahveh, your God has commanded you.
Deuteronomy 5:13 You are to labor six days and do all your work,
Deuteronomy 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahveh your God. Do not do any work– you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey, any of your livestock, or the guest who lives within your city gates, so that your male and female slaves may rest as you do.
Deuteronomy 5:15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahveh, your God, brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That is why Yahveh, your God, has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
Deuteronomy 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as Yahveh your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and so that you may prosper in the land Yahveh your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 5:17 You will not murder.
Deuteronomy 5:18 You will not commit adultery.
Deuteronomy 5:19 You will not steal.
Deuteronomy 5:20 You will not give dishonest testimony against your neighbor.
Deuteronomy 5:21 You will not crave[3] your neighbor’s wife or your neighbor’s house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Deuteronomy 5:22 “Yahveh spoke these commands in a loud voice to your entire collected assembly from the fire, cloud, and total darkness on the mountain; he added nothing to them. He wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
Deuteronomy 5:23 All of you approached me with your tribal leaders and elders when you heard the voice from the darkness and while the mountain was blazing with fire.
Deuteronomy 5:24 You said, ‘Notice,[4] Yahveh, our God, has shown us his impressive appearance[5] and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that God can speak with a human, and he stays alive.
Deuteronomy 5:25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of Yahveh, our God, any longer.
Deuteronomy 5:26 For who out of everyone in the flesh[6] has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and stayed alive?
Deuteronomy 5:27 Go near and listen to everything Yahveh our God says. Then you can tell us everything Yahveh our God tells you; we will listen and obey.’
Deuteronomy 5:28 “Yahveh heard your words when you spoke to me. He said to me, ‘I have heard the words that these people have spoken to you. Everything they have said is right.
Deuteronomy 5:29 If only they had such a heart to fear me and watch all my commands always, so that they and their children would permanently[7] prosper.
Deuteronomy 5:30 Go and tell them: Return to your tents.
Deuteronomy 5:31 But you stand here with me, and I will tell you every command – the prescriptions and rules – you are to teach them, so that they may follow them in the land I am giving them to take possession of.’
Deuteronomy 5:32 “Be careful to do as Yahveh your God has commanded you; you are not to turn aside to the right or the left.
Deuteronomy 5:33 Follow the whole instruction Yahveh your God has commanded you, so that you may stay alive, prosper, and have a long life in the land you will possess.
“But in mediating the law, Moses applied it to the contemporary situation, and his repetition of the Decalog and laws in the verses and chapters that follow in Deuteronomy differs at a number of points from the initial presentation of the law in the book of Exodus.”
Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 148.
“The laws of Deuteronomy are like a straight and well-marked ‘path’ or road, without any detours. Therefore, it was imperative for Israel to follow the Lord in all the way that he had commanded (repeated in vv. 32–33). Placed here, these verses are not seen as an intrusion on the assumption that the law had already been given, but may be perceived as anticipating the full complement of laws to follow.”
Woods, Edward J.. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Book 5) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Deuteronomy 4:1 “Now, Israel, listen to the prescriptions[1] and rules I am teaching you to follow so that you may stay alive,[2] enter, and take possession of the land Yahveh, the God of your fathers is giving you.
Deuteronomy 4:2 You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it so that you may watch the commands of Yahveh, your God I am giving you.
Deuteronomy 4:3 Your eyes have seen what Yahveh did at Baal-Peor, for Yahveh your God exterminated every one of you who followed Baal of Peor.
Deuteronomy 4:4 But you who have remained faithful to Yahveh your God are all alive today.
Deuteronomy 4:5 Look, I have taught you prescriptions and rules as Yahveh my God has commanded me so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of.
Deuteronomy 4:6 Be careful and do them, because this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the people. When they hear about all these prescriptions, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’
Deuteronomy 4:7 For what great nation is there that has a god near to it like Yahveh our God is to us whenever we call to him?
Deuteronomy 4:8 And what great nation has righteous prescriptions and rules like this entire instruction I set before you today?
Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only be careful and diligently watch your throats,[3] or else[4] you will forget the things your eyes have seen and they will slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.
Deuteronomy 4:10 The day you stood before Yahveh your God at Horeb, Yahveh said to me, ‘Collect[5] the people before me, and I will let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the land and may instruct their children.’
Deuteronomy 4:11 You came near and stood below the mountain, a mountain blazing with fire into the heart[6] of the sky and enveloped in a totally black cloud.
Deuteronomy 4:12 Then Yahveh spoke to you from the fire. You kept hearing the sound of the words but didn’t see a form; there was only a voice.
Deuteronomy 4:13 He declared his covenant to you. He commanded you to do the Ten Words,[7] which he wrote on two stone tablets.
Deuteronomy 4:14 At that time, Yahveh commanded me to teach you prescriptions and rules for you to follow in the land you are about to cross into and take possession of.
Deuteronomy 4:15 “Diligently watch your throats – because you did not see any form on the day Yahveh spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb –
Deuteronomy 4:16 or else you will act corruptly[8] and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of some figure: a male or female form,
Deuteronomy 4:17 or the form of some animal on the land, some winged creature that flies in the sky,
Deuteronomy 4:18 some creature that crawls on the ground, or some fish in the water under the land.
Deuteronomy 4:19 When you look to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars – all the stars in the sky – or else you might be led astray to bow in worship to them and serve them. Yahveh your God has provided them for all people everywhere under the sky.
Deuteronomy 4:20 But Yahveh selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for his inheritance, as you are today.
Deuteronomy 4:21 “Yahveh was angry with me because of your thing. He swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land Yahveh your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 4:22 I won’t be crossing the Jordan because I am going to die in this land. But you are about to cross over and take possession of this good land.
Deuteronomy 4:23 Be careful, or else you will forget the covenant of Yahveh your God that he established[9] with you, and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of anything he has forbidden you
Deuteronomy 4:24 because Yahveh, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 4:25 “When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of Yahveh your God, angering him,
Deuteronomy 4:26 I call sky and land as witnesses against you today that you will rapidly[10] be destroyed[11] from the land you are about to cross the Jordan to take possession of. You will not live long there, but you will indeed be exterminated.
Deuteronomy 4:27 Yahveh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivors among the nations where Yahveh, your God, will drive you.
Deuteronomy 4:28 There you will worship human-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see, hear, eat, or smell.
Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there, you will search for Yahveh, your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your throat.
Deuteronomy 4:30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the future, you will return to Yahveh, your God, and obey him.
Deuteronomy 4:31 He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them by oath because Yahveh, your God, is a compassionate God.
Deuteronomy 4:32 “Indeed, ask about the earlier days that preceded you, from the day God created humankind on the land and from one end of the sky to the other: Has anything like this great event ever happened, or has anything like it been heard of?
Deuteronomy 4:33 Has a people heard God’s voice speaking from the fire as you have, and stayed alive?
Deuteronomy 4:34 Or has a god attempted to go and take a nation as his own out of another nation, by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great terrors, as Yahveh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Deuteronomy 4:35 You were shown these things so that you would know that Yahveh is God; there is no other besides him.
Deuteronomy 4:36 He let you hear his voice from the sky to instruct you. He showed you his great fire on the land, and you listened to his words from the fire.
Deuteronomy 4:37 Because he cared about[12] your fathers, he chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by his presence and great power,
Deuteronomy 4:38 to take possession from nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as is now taking place.
Deuteronomy 4:39 Today, recognize and keep in mind that Yahveh is God in the sky above and on the land below; there is no other.
Deuteronomy 4:40 Watch his prescriptions and commands, which I am giving you today so that you and your children after you may prosper and so that you may live long in the land Yahveh your God is commanding you for all the days.”
Deuteronomy 4:41 Then Moses separated[13] three cities across the Jordan to the east.
Deuteronomy 4:42 Someone could flee there who committed manslaughter, killing his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him. He could escape to one of these cities and stay alive:
Deuteronomy 4:43 Bezer in the open country on the plateau land, belonging to the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, belonging to the Gadites; or Golan in Bashan, belonging to the Manassites.
Deuteronomy 4:44 This is the instruction Moses placed before the Israelites.
Deuteronomy 4:45 These are the reminders,[14] prescriptions, and rules Moses proclaimed to them after they came out of Egypt,
Deuteronomy 4:46 across the Jordan in the valley facing Beth-Peor in the land of King Sihon of the Amorites. He lived in Heshbon, and Moses and the Israelites defeated him after they came out of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 4:47 They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings who were across the Jordan to the east,
Deuteronomy 4:48 from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon)
Deuteronomy 4:49 and all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.
“Deut. 4 is in essence a miniature sermon on the covenant and the law, in which historical recollection is employed in a more general didactic fashion. The “sermon” prepares the way for the presentation of the Decalog and the other laws which begins in ch. 5.”
Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 129.
Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.
Today’s passage is another standalone proverb from the book of Proverbs. It is not part of a series focused on a specific theme. I chose this verse because it is highly relevant to our modern 21st-century culture. We have a biblical responsibility to speak into our current culture and shed light on it with the principles taught in God’s Word. If we don’t do that, we might give people the impression that the Bible has nothing to say about what people are discussing in the public arena.
We need to be cautious when we do this so that we don’t give the impression that we agree with people because we oppose their opponents. This often happens when Christians speak out in the political arena. If we advocate for compassion for refugees, we might be perceived as aligning with Democrats. If we oppose abortion, we might seem like Republicans. However, Christians can support both positions because our understanding of justice is based on the Bible, not the platforms of either major political party.
So, please understand that what I am saying this morning does not come from the right or the left. It is not from the red or the blue. It is a biblical proverb, and those are meant to teach all people how to make appropriate decisions in their lives. In the Bible, the wise choice is not based on strategy. It is not based on majority rule. It is not based on economics. In the Bible, the wise choice is the morally correct choice—always.
The fools will think you are a fool if you do the right thing. The mocker will mock you for being naïve. The sluggard will accuse you of acting recklessly. The schemer will criticize you for not being devious enough. But if you focus on doing what is morally right, God will smile on you. You may not get rich quickly, but you will never have a reason to feel guilty or ashamed of your actions.
Some things just don’t fit right.
Today’s proverb begins by discussing two things that don’t belong together. They are out of place. First is snow in summer. We might expect snow in the cold winter months. But seeing snow on a summer day means something is off. The weather isn’t right for snow. I grew up in Florida, and I remember it snowed once. It landed on the ground but melted right away. The only place it stayed was on the tops of the cars. So, we kids collected it from the car tops to make snowballs—which, of course, is what snow is for. If we got snow here in Delco during the summer, I bet it would melt fast. The point of the proverb is that snow in the summer is out of place.
The second thing that is out of place is rain during harvest. You don’t want it to rain then because it would interfere with the harvest. You need dry weather to get the crops in before they spoil. Once again, the point is that such rain would be out of place. It wouldn’t be fitting.
The thing that these two similes point to – the thing that is not fitting – is honoring a fool.
Some people we should honor.
We know from the Bible that God should always be honored and glorified. He is our creator and sustainer. We are also told that the Son should be honored as well as the Father, so Jesus is worthy of our honor and worship.
The fifth of the Ten Commandments tells us to honor our parents. It is the only commandment that promises that those who follow it will have things go well with them and that their lives will be long.
The Bible also encourages younger people to honor and show respect to the elderly. When my family lived in the Philippines, we got used to younger folks placing their hands on their elders’ foreheads as a sign of respect and blessing.
The Bible also encourages respect and honor for the governing authorities. This includes more than just paying our obligatory taxes. It also means showing community, state, and national leaders respect for their offices. We could use a lot more of that in our society today.
The Bible also encourages believers to honor their church leaders. Some faith communities do this very well, but many of our evangelical denominations are so careful not to idolize their leaders that they wind up not showing respect for church offices at all.
The Bible also encourages us to honor the institution of marriage. We often find this challenging. So many marriages fail. Many of our marriages appear to be under attack, both from outside influences and internal struggles.
The Bible also encourages us to make note of those whose lives reflect God’s wisdom and righteousness. We should honor such people and make them our heroes. We should pattern our lives after theirs.
The Bible also encourages believers to treat one another as equals – especially when it comes to honor and respect. In fact, the command is for us to honor one another above ourselves. That means giving deference to others instead of our own opinions and backgrounds.
With all these instructions about honoring others, it seems odd that the Bible would teach us not to honor someone. But this is the case. There are two reasons why honoring fools is not fitting.
Honoring fools encourages their foolishness.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction (1:7), so if we honor them, we affirm their choice to remain ignorant. They have chosen careless ease when they should have chosen diligence. To honor such a choice is to dishonor the wise. They have chosen the path of destruction, and the more honor we show them, the more they will continue down that path.
In fact, Proverbs tells us that the wise person will inherit honor himself, but he is instructed to hold fools up to public contempt (3:35). It is not wise to simply ignore the foolishness around us. We have to expose it. If we do not expose it, the foolish will never learn how ridiculous they are. Children do silly things, but if their parents are wise, they will rebuke and even punish their children so they know. It is not healthy or loving to ignore it when the child acts up.
The Bible encourages us to choose wise friends so we learn to act wisely as they do. It says, “The one who associates with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (13:20). As teenagers, we learn that if we run with a bad crowd, we will find ourselves doing the bad things that our friends do. Imagine that!
We need to be discerning about who we spend our time with. Both wisdom and foolishness feed on the approval we give them. If we choose to be around foolish people who do irrational things, not only will we learn those behaviors, but the fools will never learn to do anything else.
Honoring fools spreads their foolishness.
The second reason that honoring fools is not fitting is that it turns the wise into fools. If we stay around people who have chosen to live ungodly lives, that ungodliness will spread to us. The people we listen to and learn from will make us like them. They can infest us with their foolishness.
I believe this proverb is highly relevant for our 21st-century audience because we now have many different ways to invite someone into our lives. In the past, if you wanted to establish a connection with someone, you would have needed to visit them at their home or ask them to come to yours. Today, people connect through many different methods. The old ways of mail, television, movies, and the telephone have now been supplemented by texting, email, streaming, and social media.
One of the things this entails is that there are now various ways we can be influenced by people we don’t know. If we don’t know them, we don’t know what their attitude toward God and his word is.
Let me present another analogy to illustrate how risky this is. Imagine you took a bunch of pills and stored them all in one box. You grabbed some pills from your medicine cabinet, others from mine, and some from the local pharmacy. But you don’t recognize any of the pills, and you have no idea what they’re for or their side effects. Would it be wise to open the box, pick a random pill every hour, and swallow it with a glass of water? Anyone would agree that this isn’t a good idea. When it comes to our medicine, we prefer to take only what a trusted doctor prescribes, and even then, we want to know all potential side effects, the condition the pill is meant to treat, how often we should take it, and when we should stop. Pills influence our health, so we are very discriminate about which pills we take.
I hope the Lord comes back soon, but if he delays his coming, I think people will look back on this period of human history and characterize it as one in which the population as a whole was indiscriminate in whom it chose to honor. We let just anybody in to speak to us and tell us what to eat, who to love, what to buy, and how to live.
Some people think we are on the wrong road by introducing artificial intelligence into our culture. That may be true, but it might also be that the human intelligence we have been relying on is already faulty and corrupt. How do we know what we know? If we have no standard to determine whether a statement is true or untrue, how safe is our knowledge?
One of the most elementary ways to show respect to someone is to trust what they say. But in a world full of fools, sluggards, mockers, and schemers, it is not wise to trust everyone. It is not wise to honor everyone. Some of the people trying to educate us deserve public contempt. Some who are trying to lead us need to be voted out of office. Some who are trying to gain a following should be censored because they are telling lies. We can defend their freedom of speech without allowing them to teach our children. We can protect their freedom to believe what they want without allowing them to indoctrinate our children. Respecting them as citizens does not entail our honoring their influence.
We should be asking ourselves how the next generation will evaluate us. Will they consider us wise? The apostle Paul said that Jesus gave the church its leaders so that we could become mature, no longer like children, “tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes but practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head” (Ephesians 4:14-15).
He envisioned a world in which believers matured so they could be influencers. That is what Jesus said he wanted, too. He told us that we are the light of the world.
The world has enough fools. Are you ready to become wise and spread God’s wisdom? Are you prepared to let God change you so that he can then use you to change others? That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Deuteronomy 3:1 “Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and King Og of Bashan came out against us with his whole army to do battle at Edrei.
Deuteronomy 3:2 But Yahveh said to me, ‘Do not be afraid of him, because I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’
Deuteronomy 3:3 So Yahveh, our God, also handed over King Og of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left.
Deuteronomy 3:4 We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: sixty cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
Deuteronomy 3:5 All these were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a large number of rural villages.
Deuteronomy 3:6 We completely destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon, destroying the men, women, and children of every city.
Deuteronomy 3:7 But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.
Deuteronomy 3:8 “At that time we took the land from the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon,
Deuteronomy 3:9 which the Sidonians call Sirion, but the Amorites call Senir,
Deuteronomy 3:10 all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.
Deuteronomy 3:11 (Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Notice his bed was made of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It is nine cubits[1] long and four cubits[2] wide by a standard measure.)
Deuteronomy 3:12 “At that time we took possession of this land. I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the area extending from Aroer by the Arnon Valley and half the hill country of Gilead, along with its cities.
Deuteronomy 3:13 I gave half the tribe of Manasseh, the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og. The entire region of Argob, the whole territory of Bashan, used to be called the land of the Rephaim.
Deuteronomy 3:14 Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took over the entire region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He called Bashan by his name, Jair’s Villages, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 3:15 I gave Gilead to Machir,
Deuteronomy 3:16 and I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the area extending from Gilead to the Arnon Valley (the middle of the valley was the border) and up to the Jabbok River, the border of the Ammonites.
Deuteronomy 3:17 The Arabah and Jordan are also borders from Chinnereth as far as the Sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east.
Deuteronomy 3:18 “I commanded you at that time: and this is what I said: Yahveh your God has given you this land to take possession of. All your militarily qualified sons[3] will cross over in battle formation ahead of your brothers the Israelites.
Deuteronomy 3:19 But your wives, dependents, and livestock — I know that you have much livestock — will stay in the cities I have given you
Deuteronomy 3:20 until Yahveh gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land Yahveh your God is giving them across the Jordan. Then, each of you may return to his possession that I have given you.
Deuteronomy 3:21 “I commanded Joshua at that time, and this is what I said: Your own eyes have seen everything Yahveh your God has done to these two kings. Yahveh will do the same to all the kingdoms you are about to enter.
Deuteronomy 3:22 Don’t be afraid of them, because Yahveh your God fights for you.
Deuteronomy 3:23 “At that time I begged Yahveh, and this is what I said:
Deuteronomy 3:24 Yahveh God, you have begun to show your greatness and your strong hand to your servant, because what god is there in the sky or on the land who can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours?
Deuteronomy 3:25 Please let me cross over and see the beautiful land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and Lebanon.
Deuteronomy 3:26 “But Yahveh was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. Yahveh said to me, ‘That’s enough! Do not speak to me again about this matter.
Deuteronomy 3:27 Go to the top of Pisgah and look to the west, north, south, and east, and see it with your own eyes because you will not cross the Jordan.
Deuteronomy 3:28 But command Joshua and make him strong and tough, because he will cross over ahead of the people and enable them to inherit this land that you will see.’
Deuteronomy 3:29 So we stayed in the valley facing Beth-peor.
“The theology is important; there is no doubt that the people were involved in the reality of the battle, but in the recollection of military success, that success was seen as the Lord’s doing.”
Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 119.
“This section highlights the importance of God’s sovereignty and power in delivering the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, identified as Amorites, into the hands of the Israelites. Compared with Numbers 21:21–35, Deuteronomy makes two distinctive points. First, Deuteronomy anticipates the engagement and defeat of Sihon as inevitable from the outset in exodus terms. Secondly, Numbers 21 says nothing about the ban (Heb. ḥērem; Deut. 2:34–35; 3:6–7), suggesting that Deuteronomy viewed the conquest of the Transjordan in the same way as that of Canaan, as part of the Promised Land (cf. Deut. 3:18–20; 20:16–18).”
Woods, Edward J.. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Book 5) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
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