Og- Hebrew/Jewish GiantGiant"King of Bashan"

The Last of the Rephaim

Og ruled Bashan, the fertile highland northeast of the Sea of Galilee. His kingdom included sixty fortified cities with high walls, gates, and bars. He was the last of the Rephaim, the ancient race of giants who had once dominated the lands east of the Jordan.

The Bible preserves a measure of his size: "Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth" (Deuteronomy 3:11). Thirteen feet by six, kept in the Ammonite capital for anyone to see.

The Battle at Edrei

Israel encountered Og after defeating Sihon, king of the Amorites. As the Israelites approached Bashan, God told Moses: "Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land." Israel defeated Og, his sons, and all his people at Edrei and took possession of the sixty cities. The last of the Rephaim was dead.

Survivor of the Flood

Rabbinic tradition pushed Og's origins back to the world before the Flood. According to one midrash, Og was so enormous that the floodwaters reached only to his ankles. Another has him clinging to the outside of Noah's ark, surviving the deluge through Noah's charity: the patriarch passed food through a hole in the ark to the giant hanging on outside.

The Uprooted Mountain

The Talmud (Berakhot 54b) records the most vivid legend. Og saw Israel's camp spread below him and uprooted a mountain the size of the entire encampment. He raised it above his head. God sent an insect that bored a hole through the rock, and it fell around Og's neck like a collar. His teeth lengthened and gripped the stone so he could not lift it off.

Moses, who was himself ten cubits tall, took a ten-cubit staff, leaped ten cubits into the air, and struck Og's ankle. Thirty cubits just to reach the ankle. The giant fell.