Giants, Geography, and the Good Fight Text: Deuteronomy 3:1-22
Introduction: A Faith with Dirt Under its Fingernails
We live in an age that loves a disembodied spirituality. Modern man, and tragically, many modern Christians, want a faith that floats. They want a religion of the heart, a private piety that makes no territorial claims, a Jesus who is Lord of their quiet times but not Lord of their zip code. This is a safe, manageable, gnostic faith, and it is utterly alien to the robust, earthy, and demanding faith of the Scriptures.
The book of Deuteronomy is a potent antidote to this kind of ethereal nonsense. This is a book about a specific God making specific promises to a specific people about a specific piece of real estate. This is a faith with dirt under its fingernails. God is not interested in abstract principles alone; He is interested in applying those principles in time and space, in history, on the ground. The conquest of Canaan is not an allegory for your personal struggles. It was a real, bloody, geographical conquest that serves as the historical type for the spiritual conquest of the entire globe under the reign of Jesus Christ.
In this chapter, Moses recounts the conquest of the land east of the Jordan. This is not just a history lesson. It is a sermon, preached to the generation poised to cross the river. It is a call to remember God's past faithfulness as the fuel for future courage. They are about to face fortified cities and more giants, and they need to know that the God who defeated Sihon and Og is the same God who will go before them into the promised land. And we, in our turn, are to listen in. We are to see the pattern of God's work, the nature of His commands, and the basis of our confidence as we engage in the great task He has given to us: the discipling of the nations.
The Text
Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan, with all his people, came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. But Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land over into your hand; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’ So Yahweh our God also gave Og, king of Bashan, with all his people over into our hand, and we struck them until there was no survivor remaining for him. And we captured all his cities at that time; there was not a town which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns. And we devoted them to destruction, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction the men, women, and little ones of every city. But all the animals and the spoil of the cities we took as our plunder. Thus we took the land at that time from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon (Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir): all the cities of the plateau and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it is in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was nine cubits, and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit.) So we took possession of this land at that time. From Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead and its cities I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites. And the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob. (Concerning all Bashan, it is called the land of Rephaim. Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites and called it, that is, Bashan, after his own name, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.) And to Machir I gave Gilead. And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead even as far as the valley of Arnon, the middle of the valley as a border and as far as the river Jabbok, the border of the sons of Ammon; the Arabah also, with the Jordan as a border, from Chinnereth even as far as the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah on the east. Then I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it; all you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel. But your wives and your little ones and your livestock (I know that you have much livestock) shall remain in your cities which I have given you, until Yahweh gives rest to your brothers as to you, and they also possess the land which Yahweh your God will give them beyond the Jordan. Then you may return, every man to his possession which I have given you.’ And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings; so Yahweh shall do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross. Do not fear them, for Yahweh your God is the one fighting for you.’
(Deuteronomy 3:1-22 LSB)
The Divine Commission Against Giants (vv. 1-7)
The first thing to notice is the foundation of Israel's warfare. It is not initiated by a lust for land or by nationalistic pride. It is initiated by the direct command of God.
"But Yahweh said to me, 'Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land over into your hand...'" (Deuteronomy 3:2)
The battle begins not with a bugle call, but with a word from God. And the first word is a command against fear. Why? Because the enemy, Og, was genuinely fearsome. He was a giant, the last of a terrifying race, ruling a kingdom of sixty fortified cities. From a human perspective, fear was the only logical response. But God's people are not to operate on the basis of human logic, but on the basis of divine revelation. The antidote to fear is not a bigger army; it is a better promise. The victory is spoken in the past tense: "I have given him... over into your hand." The battle on the ground is simply the working out in history of what has already been decreed in heaven. God gives, and Israel takes.
This leads directly to the difficult part, the part that makes modern, sentimental Christians squirm. Verse 6 says, "And we devoted them to destruction... devoting to destruction the men, women, and little ones of every city." This is the practice of herem, or holy war. Our secular age, which thinks it has discovered a higher morality than the God who created morality, calls this genocide. But it is nothing of the sort. This was not ethnic cleansing; it was religious cleansing. This was God Almighty, the judge of all the earth, executing capital punishment on entire cultures that had given themselves over, for centuries, to demonic practices, child sacrifice, and every form of sexual perversion imaginable. Their iniquity was finally full (Gen. 15:16). God was using Israel as His scalpel to cut out a cancerous tumor from the earth before it could infect His own people.
This was a unique, temporary command for a specific period in redemptive history. It was a foreshadowing of the final judgment, when all that is unholy will be removed from the new heavens and the new earth. To stumble over this is to assume that man has the right to stand in judgment over God's justice. It is to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil all over again.
The Memorial of a Dead Giant (vv. 8-11)
Moses then provides a summary of the territory taken, but he includes a fascinating parenthetical note that is essential to the story.
"(For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead... Its length was nine cubits, and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit.)" (Deuteronomy 3:11)
Why this strange detail about a bed? A cubit is roughly eighteen inches, so Og's bed was about thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide. This is not interior decorating advice. This is a war trophy. The Rephaim, of whom Og was the last in that area, were a race of giants, likely connected to the Nephilim of Genesis 6, the unholy offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men. This was not just a battle against another pagan king; this was a spiritual battle against the ancient seed of the serpent. The original spies at Kadesh Barnea had been terrified of the giants in the land. Their fear paralyzed an entire generation.
Now, Moses is holding up the memory of Og's bed as a massive, tangible proof of God's power. It's as if he is saying, "You are worried about giants? We have already killed their king. His enormous bed is now a museum piece in Rabbah. The biggest and baddest of them all has fallen. The God who did that for us will do it again for you." The enemies of God may appear impossibly large, strong, and intimidating, but they are not immortal. They are not bigger than our God. This bed is a memorial to the fact that God keeps His promises, and no foe is too great for Him.
The Geography of Grace (vv. 12-17)
Following the victory, Moses details the allotment of the conquered land. This is not a dry, boring appendix. This is the tangible result of God's promise.
"So we took possession of this land at that time. From Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon... I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites. And the rest of Gilead and all Bashan... I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh..." (Deuteronomy 3:12-13)
God's grace is not a vapor. It is concrete. He promised Abraham a land, and here we see that promise beginning to be fulfilled with precise borders: the valley of Arnon, the river Jabbok, the Jordan. God is a God of maps. He is a God of geography. Our salvation is likewise not an abstract concept. It is rooted in the historical fact of a man named Jesus, who was born in a specific town, walked on specific roads, died on a specific hill, and rose from a specific tomb. God's kingdom takes up space.
The land is an inheritance. It is a gift of grace. They fought for it, yes, but the fighting was the means by which they took possession of a gift already given. This is the relationship between faith and works. We do not work in order to be saved; we work because we have been saved. We fight, not for victory, but from victory. These tribes are now landowners, stewards of a portion of God's earth, because God was gracious to them.
The Covenantal Obligation (vv. 18-22)
The chapter concludes with a crucial command from Moses to the tribes who received this land and a final encouragement to his successor, Joshua.
"Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it; all you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel." (Deuteronomy 3:18)
The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have their inheritance. They could have reasonably said, "Thank you very much. We will settle down now with our wives and our abundant livestock." But that is not how the covenant works. You are not blessed by God simply for your own comfort and ease. You are blessed in order to be a blessing. Your fight is not over until your brother's fight is over.
This is a profound principle of covenant solidarity. We are one body. The church is not a collection of individual spiritual consumers, each with his own private deal with God. The church is an army on the march. We are responsible for one another. Those who are strong must bear the infirmities of the weak. Those who have received their inheritance have an obligation to fight for those who have not yet received theirs. This is a direct rebuke to any form of Christianity that prizes personal peace and prosperity above the advance of the kingdom and the well-being of the whole body.
Finally, Moses turns to Joshua:
"Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings; so Yahweh shall do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross. Do not fear them, for Yahweh your God is the one fighting for you." (Deuteronomy 3:21-22)
This is the foundation of all Christian courage. It is rooted in remembrance. Look back, Moses says. Look at the dead kings. Look at the captured cities. Look at the empty bed of the giant. What God has done in the past is the blueprint for what He will do in the future. Our confidence is not in our own strength or wisdom, but in the demonstrated, historical faithfulness of our God.
For us, the application is even more profound. We look back, not just to the defeat of Sihon and Og, but to the defeat of sin and death at the cross and the empty tomb. Our Joshua, Jesus, has already conquered the ultimate giant. He has already secured the ultimate victory. Therefore, as we face the giants in our own land, the spiritual strongholds of unbelief and rebellion, we are to remember what our eyes have seen. We do not fight a battle that is in doubt. We are on the winning side. We do not fear them, for Yahweh our God, in the person of His Son, is the one fighting for us.