Og, king of Bashan, is the great giant-king of the Hebrew scriptures — the last of an ancient race of giants, a ruler of immense stature whose iron bedstead became a marvel and whose defeat secured the eastern lands for Israel. In rabbinic legend his size swelled to fantastic, almost cosmic dimensions.
The Last of the Rephaim
Og is named as the king of Bashan, a fertile land east of the Jordan, and the last survivor of the [rephaim], the ancient giant-people. When Israel marched against him at Edrei, God reassured Moses, and Og and all his people were defeated and his cities taken. The Book of Deuteronomy preserves a striking detail as proof of his stature: “Behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron... nine cubits its length, and four cubits its breadth” — a bed some thirteen feet long, kept as a wonder in the Ammonite city of Rabbah.
The Giant of Legend
The sages of later tradition magnified Og into a being of staggering scale. They told that he was so vast he survived the Flood by clinging to the outside of Noah’s Ark (or riding upon its roof), making him a bridge between the antediluvian giants and the age of Israel. In one famous tale, Og tried to crush the camp of Israel by lifting a mountain over his head to hurl upon them — only for the mountain to slip down around his neck like a collar, holding him fast so that Moses could strike him down. His teeth, his height, and his strength all grew in the telling to legendary proportions.
The Fall of the Giant-King
For all his might, Og fell, and his kingdom of Bashan became a possession of the tribes of Israel — his defeat, with that of Sihon, remembered ever after in Israel’s songs of deliverance: “to him who struck down great kings... Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever.” In Og, Hebrew tradition gave a name and a throne to the last of the giants — a king of legendary size whose iron bed and whose fall stood as proof that no power of stature could stand against the destiny of a people under heaven.