Bible Commentaries
Deuteronomy 3

Verse 8

And we took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto mount Hermon;

On this side Jordan — So it was when Moses wrote this book; but afterward when Israel passed over Jordan it was called the land beyond Jordan.

Verse 9

(Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion; and the Amorites call it Shenir;)

Sirion — Elsewhere called Mount Gilead, and Lebanon, and here Shenir, and Sirion, which several names are given to this one mountain partly by several people, and partly in regard of several tops and parts of it.

Verse 10

All the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, unto Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

All Gilead — Gilead is sometimes taken for all the Israelites possessions beyond Jordan, and so it comprehends Bashan; but here for that part of it which lies in and near mount Gilead, and so it is distinguished from Bashan and Argob.

Verse 11

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

In Rabbath — Where it might now be, either because the Ammonites in some former battle with Og, had taken it as a spoil: or because after Og’s death, the Ammonites desired to have this monument of his greatness, and the Israelites permitted them to carry it away to their chief city.

Nine cubits — So his bed was four yards and an half long, and two yards broad.

Verse 14

Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi; and called them after his own name, Bashanhavothjair, unto this day.

Unto this day — This must be put among those passages which were not written by Moses, but added by those holy men, who digested the books of Moses into this order, and inserted some few passages to accommodate things to their own time and people.

Verse 15

And I gave Gilead unto Machir.

Gilead — That is, the half part of Gilead.

To Machir — That is, unto the children of Machir, son of Manasseh, for Machir was now dead.

Verse 16

And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;

Half the valley — Or rather to the middle of the river: for the word rendered half signifies commonly middle, and the same Hebrew word means both a valley and a brook or river. And this sense is agreeable to the truth, that their land extended from Gilead unto Arnon, and, to speak exactly, to the middle of that river; for as that river was the border between them and others, so one half of it belonged to them, as the other half did to others, Joshua 12:2. The same thing is expressed in the same words in the Hebrew which are here, though our translators render the self-same words there, from the middle of the river, which here they render, half of the valley. There the bounds of Sihon’s kingdom, which was the same portion here mentioned as given to Reuben and Gad, are thus described, from Aroer, which is upon the bank of the river of Arnon, and from the middle of the river, and from half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon.

Verse 17

The plain also, and Jordan, and the coast thereof, from Chinnereth even unto the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, under Ashdothpisgah eastward.

The plain — The low country towards Jordan.

The sea of the plain — That is, that salt sea, which before that dreadful conflagration was a goodly plain.

Verse 18

And I commanded you at that time, saying, The LORD your God hath given you this land to possess it: ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war.

You — Namely, the Reubenites and Gadites.

All that are meet — In such number as your our brethren shall judge necessary. They were in all above an hundred thousand. Forty thousand of them went over Jordan before their brethren.

Verse 23

And I besought the LORD at that time, saying,

I besought the Lord — We should allow no desire in our hearts, which we cannot in faith offer unto God by prayer.

Verse 24

O Lord GOD, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?

Thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness — Lord, perfect what thou hast begun. The more we see of God’s glory in his works, the more we desire to see. And the more we are affected with what we have seen of God, the better we are prepared for farther discoveries.

Verse 25

I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.

Let me go over — For he supposed God’s threatening might be conditional and reversible, as many others were.

That goodly mountain — Which the Jews not improbably understood of that mountain on which the temple was to be built. This he seems to call that mountain, emphatically and eminently, that which was much in Moses’s thoughts, though not in his eye.

Verse 28

But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see.

He shall go over — It was not Moses, but Joshua or Jesus that was to give the people rest, Hebrews 4:8. ’Tis a comfort to those who love mankind, when they are dying and going off, to see God’s work likely to be carried on by other hands, when they are silent in the dust.