King Og's Iron Bed

MARIA LINDQUIST Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

DEUTERONOMY'S ACCOUNT of King Og's defeat by the Israelites concludes

with a curious note:

•»m min κιπ rftn ^nn ferro îferw run an«nn l i ra Ί Κ Λ ι ηπ η1?» n r p i Ό ^K-nöxa mm max smuri nmx max y^n yiöj;

For only Og, king of Bashan, was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. See! His bed, an iron bed—Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites?—it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide by the standard cubit! (Sill)1

This reference to King Og's iron bed has long puzzled biblical scholars. Unable to make sense of the literal meaning "iron bed," *?T"D feTW, scholars have traditionally understood the phrase as denoting King Og's final resting place in the form of a basalt sarcophagus.2 A similar interpretation, most recently defended by Timo Veijola, is that the *?m ÌZTIS7 refers to a dolmen, a megalithic funerary monument.3

I would like to thank Jeffrey Stackert, Dennis Pardee, and Jon D. Levenson for their helpful comments on several earlier drafts of this essay.

1 Hebrew translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 2 S. R. Driver (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy [ICC; 3rd ed.; Edin­

burgh: Clark, 1902] 53) attributes the origin of the sarcophagus theory to J. D. Michaelis. Driver observes, however, that the word used in Biblical Hebrew for sarcophagus is ΉΊΝ, as in Gen 50:26. Hence, for Driver, "the supposed meaning of WW [as sarcophagus] is little more than conjectural" (p. 53). More recent proponents of the sarcophagus view include Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) 120; and A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCB; 2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981) 144.

3 Timo Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed (Deut 3:11): Once Again," in Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, and the Septuagint Presented to Eugene Ulrich (ed. Peter W. Flint et al.; VTSup 101; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003) 60-76. Other scholars who have supported this translation are

477

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Proponents of both views have reasoned that some type of tomb would be better suited as a memorial of King Og's defeat than a bed. Veijola, for instance, argues that, since the reference to Og's *?H3 tony appears immediately after an account of the annihilation of his kingdom, Og would have been among the dead, and thus "the context strongly favors the view that his bed . . . is his last visible remnant, namely his tomb."4

In addition to appealing to literary context, advocates of the sarcophagus and dolmen theories have cited linguistic and archaeological evidence in attempts to support their interpretations. Although both tony ("bed" or "couch") and ^ m ("iron") are well attested in the Hebrew Bible and can nowhere be shown to refer to a tomb or basalt, respectively, scholars have pointed to several texts in which other words for "bed," 3Dtoft and HÜÜ, appear to designate a place of burial (Isa 57:2; Ezek 32:25) or a bier (2 Chr 16:14; 2 Sam 3:31).5 They therefore conclude that tony also may be used to denote a tomb. Although this seems to be a sensible suggestion, such reasoning should be regarded with caution. Particularly in metaphorical or idiomatic expressions in a given language, it cannot be taken for granted that the synonym of any word may be substituted for that word in all instances and result in the same meaning. (For example, in English the word "rag" can be used to refer to a newspaper. However, if one were to call the same publi­cation a "cloth," the meaning would not be clear, even though "cloth" and "rag" are synonyms.)

The vast quantity of sarcophagi and dolmens exhumed in Transjordan is also marshaled as evidence that the *?Γΰ toni? located in Rabbah was one of these tomb types. Because ancient sarcophagi and dolmens that have been excavated in the area are not made of iron, however, but are generally constructed from basalt, scholars tend to adjust their interpretation of *7Γΰ in Deut 3:11 from iron to basalt accordingly. This is not the only problem faced by those who attempt to argue for an interpretation of *7ΓΏ tony as a tomb based on the historicity of such an artifact. For instance, Veijola rejects the sarcophagus interpretation on the ground that no sarcophagus approaching the reported size of Og's *7T-Q tony has ever been exhumed. On the other hand, because numerous dolmens of such dimensions have been discovered in Transjordan, Veijola infers that the *?Tna tony is more likely to have been a basalt dolmen. Yet, if the author of Deut 3:11 describes Og's huge

Roland de Vaux, The Early History of Israel (trans. David Smith; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978) 567; and Martin Noth, The History of Israel (trans. P. R. Ackroyd; 2nd ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1960) 160.

4 Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed," 63. By contrast, in the view of Alan R. Millard (among oth­ers), the text does not indicate that King Og has died but rather that "King Og alone survived," since Deut 3:11 states that "only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim" ("King Og's Iron Bed: Fact or Fancy?" Bible Review 6 [1990] 16-21, 44, here 16).

5 Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed," 66; Driver, Deuteronomy, 53.

KING OG'S IRON BED 479

*?în3 tony in order to present evidence confirming King Og's extraordinary size, as Veijola himself maintains,6 then it should be expected that such an artifact would be atypically large. But since many dolmens are massive, including those entomb­ing average-size individuals, the measurements given in Deut 3:11 for Og's tony *?ra would hardly be remarkable; the reference would thus fail to corroborate Og's formidable stature as the last of the Rephaim, a fabled race of giants.7

Such difficulties with the traditional view have led a number of scholars to accept Alan R. Millard's more recent proposal that *?PQ tony should be understood literally.8 Seeing no reason to assume that the ancient audience would have taken *?ΓΠ tony to mean a stone sarcophagus and not simply an iron bed, Millard asserts that the phrase must refer to an actual piece of furniture. He points to biblical texts describing "beds of ivory" (Amos 6:4), "an ivory throne" (1 Kgs 10:18; 2 Chr 9:17), and "an ivory house" (1 Kgs 22:39), which are substantiated by archaeo­logical data showing that ivory was used in the Iron Age to overlay or decorate wooden furniture.9 Millard explains that iron would have been a valuable com­modity during the Late Bronze Age, when the battle against King Og was supposed to have occurred, and he cites evidence that iron was used for purposes of adorn­ment during this period, just as ivory embellished luxury items at a later date.10

From these data, Millard avers: "An 'iron bed' in an ancient Near Eastern context, therefore, is surely to be understood as a bed adorned with iron."11

6 Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed," 71. 7 Moreover, Veijola builds his case for interpreting ΓΠ tiny as a basalt dolmen on the his­

toricity of the artifact in Rabbah to which the story supposedly refers. Yet Veijola later concedes that a basalt dolmen is unlikely to have existed in Rabbah at all, since in contrast to dolmens of Galilee and northern Transjordan, "basalt is not available in Amman and its surroundings. Dolmens of that region are made of the local limestone or brimstone" ("King Og's Iron Bed," 74). Veijola attributes this problematic detail to the author's limited knowledge: "It can be assumed that its author . . . scarcely was very well informed about the geographical and geological circumstances in Amman," and he concludes by reminding us, "We are not dealing here with historical facts but with fiction, and therefore a freedom in the description of geographical details must be allowed" (ibid.). Thus, Veijola rejects alternative theories for failing to correspond adequately to historical veracity, yet when confronted with concrete evidence that undermines the historicity of his own interpretation, he is content to attribute such incongruous details to the author's imagination or ignorance.

8 Alan R. Millard, "King Og's Bed and Other Ancient Ironmongery," in Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (ed. Lyle M. Eslinger and Glen J. Taylor; JSOTSup 67; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988) 481-92; and idem, "King Og's Iron Bed," 16-21, 44. Scholars who have supported Millard's interpretation include Jeffrey H. Tigay (Deuteronomy ΟΉΤΤ: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the NewJPS Translation [JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996] 35); and Moshe Weinfeld (Deuteronomy 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 5; New York: Doubleday, 1991] 184).

9 Millard, "King Og's Bed and Other Ancient Ironmongery," 485. 1 0 Ibid., 487-89. 11 Ibid., 485. Believing that the reference to this type of furniture preserves authentic Late

Bronze Age traditions, Millard argues for a much earlier dating of Deut 3:11 than is usually assigned

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Millard's thesis presents a serious challenge to the traditional understanding of *?ΓΠ t£HS7 as a tomb, particularly considering the ambiguous linguistic and archaeological evidence used to support the tomb interpretation. Millard neglects, however, to offer a convincing explanation of how the image of an iron bed func­tions in the narrative context of Deuteronomy's conquest account. Although he cogently defends the historical plausibility of a royal iron bed in the Late Bronze Age, several essential questions remain: Why does a piece of furniture appear in this story at all? Why is it described in such great detail? Why is Og's bed men­tioned in Deuteronomy but not in the parallel account of Og's defeat in Numbers?

I will argue that the iron bed of King Og may be conceived as a battle trophy signaling the utter defeat of this colossal king at the hands of the Israelite warrior god. As a piece of booty, Og's bed fits the narrative context of Deut 3:1-11, a con­quest account that appears to incorporate Neo-Assyrian military motifs. In partic­ular, the iron bed attributed to the vanquished King Og should be considered in light of royal beds seized as booty by invading Assyrian armies. When understood as a war trophy, the size and substance of Og's bed take on greater import. The hugeness of the bed (about thirteen feet long and six-and-a-half feet wide) attests to the great stature of King Og and supports Deuteronomy's claim that Og was one of the giant Rephaim.

Yet we are not told merely that the bed is huge; rather, the author carefully lays out the precise measurements of the bed—its length is nine standard cubits, its width four standard cubits. Remarkably, these dimensions correspond to the measurements of another famous bed, the bed of Marduk, a battle trophy and sig­nificant symbol of power in seventh-century Mesopotamian politics, which is also said to have measured nine cubits long and four cubits wide.12 By setting Og's bed alongside the bed of a major deity, the author likens Og to a god and bolsters his

to it and to similar parenthetical remarks scattered throughout the opening chapters of Deuteronomy (2:10-12, 20-23; 3:9, 13b), which many scholars consider to be later, even post-Deuteronomistic insertions.

12 The Esagil Tablet records the measurements of the bed kept in Marduk's shrine at Esagil: "The bed, nine cubits (its long) side, four cubits (its) front" (Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed," 63). The cuneiform reads GI§.NÁ 9 KÙS US 4 KÙS SAG; in Akkadian: ersum 9 ammätu siddu 4 ammätu pütu (Eckhard Unger, Babylon: Die heilige Stadt nach der Beschreibung der Babylonier [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1931] 239). Veijola ("King Og's Iron Bed," 64) challenges this connection by pointing out that the Esagil Tablet is a late copy that dates from 229 B.C.E. and that earlier Assyrian sources indicate the bed was six and two-thirds cubits long and three and two-thirds cubits wide. It appears, however, that Marduk's original bed was destroyed only a few years after its return, when the Assyrians burned Babylon in 648 B.CE. to quash the Shamash-shum-ukin rebellion. In 639 B.CE., Ashurbanipal provided Marduk with a second, larger bed to replace the destroyed original (A. R. Millard, "Another Babylonian Chronicle Text," Iraq 26 [1964] 14-35, here 23). Unfortunately, the exact measurements of the second bed are not attested in Assyrian sources, but it is certainly possible that the second bed could be the same bed of Marduk described in the Esagil Tablet, which was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, and the bed alluded to by the author of Deut 3:11.

KING OG'S IRON BED 481

status as a superhuman warrior. The iron material of Og's bed further emphasizes the fearsomeness of this enemy defeated by Yhwh.

I. Numbers 21 as Source Text

To understand the particular significance of Og's bed in Deuteronomy, it is useful to consider how Deuteronomy's account compares to the earlier story of Og's defeat in Num 21:33-35.13 Deuteronomy's description of the battle against Og begins with a verbatim quotation of Num 21:33-34:

:^mx nan1?^ îay-^rn ΧΊΠ nnxnp1? it£bn"f?a ny m pnn -pi fan ικη irferai ιηχ-ηχι larto-nxi ιηκ "»nm ι τ α Ό inx ΧΤΓΓ^Χ nwa- x πιττ nax*n

Tintf ra atfv Ί ^ Χ naxn ^ a imo1? rvfry nuto f?

They turned and went up the road of Bashan, and Og King of Bashan, with all his

people, came out to meet them in battle at Edrei. But Yhwh said to Moses: "Do not

be afraid of him, for I am giving him and all his people and his land into your hand.

You shall do to him just as you did to Sihon King of the Amorites, who lived in

Heshbon."

Compare Deut 3:1-2:

WTK narfta1? îasrtoi χίπ unxnp1? i r à r r f ^ ny x n irán γπ *OTI pn mfryi ιηχ-ηχι îasrta-nxi inx Tiru t r a Ό ιηκ χτη *7X ,;7X mrr nax i

•patf rn ntf r Ί ^ Χ naxn i^a irro1? rvto n^xa Λ

We turned and went up the road of Bashan, and Og king of Bashan, with all his people,

came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. But Yhwh said to me: "Do not be afraid of

him, for I am giving him and all his people and his land into your hand. You shall do

to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon."

Up to this point, the only difference between these two accounts is that Numbers

relates the tale in the third person, while Deuteronomy, because its story is told

from the perspective of Moses, uses first-person narration.

The Numbers account ends abruptly in 21:35:

ιηχ-ηχ nrh"! mto frTXtfn vhi-w îasrta-nxi van-nxi inx Ό Ί

They attacked him and his sons and all his people until no survivor was left to him;

and they took possession of his land.

13 The fact that these verses are nearly identical has led some scholars to conclude that the Numbers account is based on Deuteronomy, rather than the other way around. See Martin Noth, Numbers: A Commentary (trans. James D. Martin; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968) 166. As Marc Zvi Brettler (The Creation of History in Ancient Israel [New York: Routledge, 1995] 75) has pointed out, however, "the passage in Numbers is not characterized by Deuteronomic phraseology, which would be expected if it originated from Deuteronomy."

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Deuteronomy 3:3 describes Og's downfall in a similar manner:

VrTxtf η •'rftmy VDJI lay- rrnxi iBbrrf?» nrnx m irra irrftx mrr im rife

Then Yhwh our God also gave Og king of Bashan and all his people into our hand, and we attacked him until no survivor was left to him.

Although the two battle accounts share an identical outcome, with King Og suffering the same disaster, here we see that the author of Deuteronomy begins to make some minor adjustments. Whereas Numbers describes the battle in human terms, indicating that it is the Israelites who lead the charge against Og, in Deuteronomy the primary actor is said to be ΊΓΠ Χ WW, "Yhwh our God," who is explicitly credited with Israel's military victory. This modification reflects a theology consistent with Deuteronomy's concept of "holy war": Israel's military success is entirely dependent on the willingness of Yhwh to do battle on their behalf.14 Deuteronomy emphasizes this point by stating repeatedly that it is Yhwh who fights for Israel (see, e.g., Deut 20:2-4; 23:10-15), and in the opening chapter Moses recounts the disaster at Kadesh-barnea as proof of the Israelites' impotence without the presence of Yhwh.

Israel's subsequent takeover of Og's territory is stated succinctly in the final clause of Num 21:35: "they took possession of his land." Deuteronomy 3:4-10 expands this terse summary, offering an exaggerated report of how the Israelites storm dozens of heavily fortified cities—exterminating their citizens and plunder­ing their valuables—before seizing all the land in Og's extensive kingdom:

We captured all of his cities at that time. There was not a town that we did not take away from them: sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan—all of these cities were fortified with high walls, doors, and bars—besides innumerable small villages. We exterminated them just as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, annihilating every city—men, women, and children. But all the cattle and the booty of the cities we took for ourselves as spoil. At that time we took the land from the possession of the two Amorite kings who were on the other side of the Jordan, from the wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon (Sidonians call Hermon Sinon, and the Amorites call it Senir), all the cities of the plain, and all of Gilead and Bashan up to Salean and Edrei, the cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

If the author of the Deuteronomic account begins with near verbatim quotation of Numbers in w. 1-2 and deviates only slightly from this prototype in v. 3 to advance a central theological point, why does the author suddenly indulge in an extended exaggeration of the source material in w. 4-10?

1 4 For a thorough discussion of warfare and hërem in Deuteronomy, see Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991); and Philip D. Stern, The Biblical Herem: A Window on Israel's Religious Experience (BJS 211; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991) 89-121.

KING OG'S IRON BED 483

Before returning to address this question, let us again consider the final verse of the pericope, Deut 3:11: "For only Og, king of Bashan, was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. See! His bed, an iron bed—Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? —it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide by the standard cubit!" Whereas Deut 3:4-10 can be seen as an expansion of the seizure of land that is described briefly in Numbers, there is no precedent for Deut 3:11 in the Numbers account. Suddenly Og is to be counted among the Rephaim and is supposed to have owned the enor­mous iron bed on display in the Ammonite capital! If vv. 4-10 exaggerate their source material, v. 11 veers wildly off course. Rather than simply attributing these deviations to the storyteller's eccentric imagination, however, we should instead consider how the embellished conquest account in Deut 3:4-11 may have been informed by historical conditions surrounding the composition of this text.

II. Neo-Assyrian Influence

The similarity between Deuteronomy's covenant structure and Neo-Assyrian vassal treaties has been well observed; particularly in its vivid descriptions of curses in chap. 28, Deuteronomy seems to be intentionally mirroring the language of Esarhaddon's vassal treaty.15 The description of Og's bed, as well as Deuteron­omy's detailed conquest narrative, may also incorporate elements of Neo-Assyrian military propaganda, which would not have been unfamiliar to inhabitants of Assyrian vassal states such as Judah. In the inscription detailing the military cam­paign against Hezekiah in 701 B.CE., for instance, Sennacherib boasts about the great number of fortified cities he captured and notes that he also took a vast quan­tity of unfortified towns: "I besieged forty-six of his fortified walled cities and sur­rounding smaller towns, which were without number."16 Deuteronomy 3:4-5 appears to imitate this type of Assyrian chronicle: "We captured all of his cities at that time. There was not a town that we did not take away from them: sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan—all of these cities were fortified with high walls, doors, and bars—besides innumerable small villages." The total annihilation of cities and enemies described in Deut 3:6 is also a recurrent theme of Assyrian conquest narratives. Sennacherib's account of his ruthless treat-

15 See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972; repr., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992) 116-26. For major studies of parallels between parity treaties and biblical traditions, see Dennis J. McCarthy, S.J., Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (new ed., completely rewritten; AnBib 21 A; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978); and Paul Kalluveettil, Declaration and Covenant: A Comprehensive Review of Covenant Formulae from the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East (AnBib 88; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1982).

16 Mordechai Cogan, trans., "Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem," in The Context of Scripture (ed. William W. Hallo et al.; 3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1997-2002) 2:303, no. 119B.

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ment of Babylonia after its unsuccessful rebellion in 689 B.CE. is a case in point: "I destroyed, devastated and burned [their towns] and turned them into forgotten tells. . . . I slew the warriors of Hirimmu, a dangerous enemy. . . . Not a soul escaped."17

Along with proudly recounting their subjugation of foreign peoples, Assyrian rulers were also fond of cataloguing the booty seized in the course of their exploits. As in Deut 3:7, Neo-Assyrian military records often mention cattle among the spoils of war. Other items that commonly appear in lists of plunder are precious metals, human slaves, jewelry, weapons, and furniture—in particular, beds. Although it may seem strange to modern readers that beds should be coveted com­modities, proper beds were considered luxury items in the ancient Near East. Beds thus figure prominently in lists and images of booty taken during the Neo-Assyrian period. Royal beds, which were usually constructed with rare woods overlaid in silver or gold and embellished with jewels and ivory, were especially prized. For instance, Assurnasirpal II boasts about defeating King Lubarna the Patinean and divesting him of "decorated couches of boxwood with inlay, beds of boxwood, decorated beds with inlay."18 As a result of his campaign against Damascus in 773-772, Shamshi-ilu, the field marshal of King Adad-nirari III, reports: "the tribute of Hadianu of the Arameans of Damascus—silver, gold, copper, his royal bed, his royal couch, his daughter with her enormous dowry, the countless property of his palace—I received from him."19 In describing his subjugation of Jerusalem, Sennacherib also gloats over the heavy tribute he imposed on King Hezekiah, which included beds and armchairs inlaid with ivory.20

III. Marduk's Bed

In addition to their obvious material value, royal beds were regarded as polit­ical status symbols, especially in the Neo-Assyrian period. The ornate beds of van­quished kings were treated as war trophies by invading armies and publicly paraded from ruined cities as a demonstration of the defeated king's loss of status and political sovereignty.21 The most famous bed taken as plunder in Mesopotamia,

17 Mordechai Cogan, trans., "Sennacherib's First Campaign: Against Merodach-Baladan," in Context of Scripture, 2:302, no. 119A.

18 A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, vol. 1, 1114-859 BC (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods 2; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991)142.

19 J. K. Kuan, Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine (Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary, 1995) 115.

20 Cogan, "Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem," 303. 21 Barbara N. Porter, "Beds, Sex, and Politics: The Return of Marduk's Bed to Babylon," in

Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Inter­nationale, Helsinki, July 2-6, 2001 (ed. Simo Parpóla and Robert M. Whiting; Compte rendu, Ren-

KING OG'S IRON BED 485

however, belonged not to a king but to a god. In 689 B.CE., Babylon fell to the Assyrian king Sennacherib, whose army burned and looted the city. The treasures of war included a statue of the Babylonian god Marduk, as well as Marduk's huge jewel-encrusted bed, which the Assyrian army took from his temple in Babylon. After being deported to Assyria, the statue of Marduk and his bed were housed in the temple of Assur, the patron god of Assyria. According to Barbara N. Porter, the bed's "public removal from Babylon on the shoulders of Assyrian soldiers [was] a demeaning gesture intended to signal Marduk's demotion to the status of a lesser god, no longer patron of his own divine household."22 As Babylonia grew increasingly powerful in the decades following its defeat, Sennacherib's successor Ashurbanipal returned the statue of Marduk to Babylon as a conciliatory gesture. Marduk's bed, however, was not returned along with the statue. Rather, the Assyr­ians maintained custody of the bed for another thirteen years until 654 B.CE., when Ashurbanipal finally sent it back to Babylon in a desperate effort to appease the truculent Babylonians, who revolted only two years later.

Ashurbanipal's extensive documentation of the return of Mardujt's bed to the Esagil temple in Babylon attests to its great significance. Ashurbanipal recorded the return of the bed in two separate royal annals, set up a stone inscription com­memorating the event in Assur's temple, and displayed three copies of the account in the temple of Ishtar in Nineveh.23 Clearly Ashurbanipal wished to propagate the news that Marduk's plundered bed had been restored to Babylon, and the bed's renown is likely to have spread throughout the empire. Marduk's bed is also described in Babylonian records such as the Esagil Tablet, which notes the meas­urements of the bed kept in Marduk's shrine: "The bed, nine cubits (its long) side, four cubits (its) front."24 These figures are compelling, since they match the dimen­sions given for King Og's bed in Deut 3:11, and it is possible that the author of Deuteronomy may have been specifically alluding to the bed of Marduk in this verse, especially considering the highly publicized position of the bed in seventh-century international politics.25

If the author of Deuteronomy was intentionally referring to Marduk's bed in 3:11, thereby drawing a connection between the god Marduk and the giant Og, what was the purpose of doing so?26 Such a comparison may have been motivated

contre assyriologique international 47; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002) 523-35, here 528.

22 Ibid., 524. 23 Ibid. 24 As cited by Veijola, "King Og's Iron Bed," 63. 25 Another possibility is that Deut 3:11 could have been composed during the sixth-century

Babylonian exile and that the author's proximity to the (second) bed of Marduk, which was housed in the Esagil temple, accounts for the author's knowledge of its dimensions.

26 Ulrich Hübner ("Og von Baschan und sein Bett in Rabbat-Ammon [Deuteronomium 3,11]," ZAW105 [1993] 86-92), who also has observed the corresponding dimensions of these beds, con-

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by theological interests. By setting Og and Marduk on an equal level, the author elevates Og from a human king to a divine being. Deuteronomy had already inflated the Numbers account by claiming that Og was one of the Rephaim, a leg­endary group of giants. Insinuating that Og is comparable to Marduk further enhances the status of Og as a seemingly indomitable enemy. This aggrandizement of Og in turn serves to bolster the status of Yhwh, since it suggests that Yhwh does not defeat a mere human being but rather conquers a fellow warrior god. Here again the author emphasizes that, without Yhwh's intervention, this superhuman opponent certainly would have crushed the Israelites.

Comparing Og's bed to the bed of Marduk may also have had specific polit­ical implications. Just as Deuteronomy's imitation of Esarhaddon's vassal treaty in its covenant formula can be understood as an act of political subversion, imply­ing that the citizens of Judah refuse to submit to Assyrian rulers but rather swear to heed the authority of Yhwh alone,27 so too this allusion to a well-known symbol of Assyrian subjugation may have been an attempt to assert Judah's political auton­omy. By claiming that Yhwh had at one time taken a bed as magnificent as Marduk's, the author suggests that the military prowess of Yhwh is just as daunting as that of Neo-Assyrian rulers and their bed-seizing armies. Moreover, whereas the position of Marduk's bed depended on the vicissitudes of Mesopotamian politics—traveling back and forth between Assur and Babylon according to the shifting power of their respective states—the iron bed of King Og remains firmly

eludes that the allusion to Marduk's bed in Deut 3:11 should be read as a religious polemic against the Ammonites. According to Hübner, by connecting King Og with Marduk and his famous bed— which may also have been used in the Babylonian "sacred marriage" ritual—the author of Deuteron­omy was casting aspersions on King Og and the Ammonites, since the reference would be tantamount to accusing King Og of cultic prostitution, a practice scorned by the Israelite audience: "Es ist kaum ein Zufall, wenn in einem alttestamentlichen Text der babylonischen oder nachbaby­lonischen Zeit das Kultgerät auftaucht, daß zu den wichtigsten der (ehemaligen) babylonischen Besatzungs- und Großmacht gehörte: Auf ihm spielte sich im Kultritual das ab, was in Israel so sehr verpönt war und was nun auf einmal laut Dtn 3,11 schon zu Zeiten Ogs in Rabbat-Ammon, der Haupstadt des ammonitischen Nachbarstaates, der Fall gewesen sein soll Angesichts der mas­siven antiammonitischen Vorurteile in Juda bzw. Israel... war es nur konsequent, die Ammoniter über die Gestalt des Ogs auch noch nebenbei mit dem Vorwurf der 'Kultprostitution' in Mißkredit zu bringen" (pp. 91-92). Although Hübner rightly identifies an anti-Ammonite strain in the Hebrew Bible, his interpretation of Deut 3:11 as a veiled charge of prostitution against King Og and the Ammonites is far-fetched. Without additional evidence, it is not at all clear how associating Og with such illustrious beings as the Rephaim or Marduk, the preeminent god of Babylon, would have served to demean King Og. To the contrary, as I argue here, comparing Og to these superhuman beings was a way of aggrandizing the Transjordanian king.

27 See Patricia Dutcher-Walls, "Sleeping Next to the Elephant: Ideological Adaptation on the Periphery," in From Babel to Babylon: Essays on Biblical History and Literature in Honour of Brian Peckham (ed. Joyce Rilett Wood et al.; Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies; New York: Clark, 2006) 182-91, here 183.

KING OG'S IRON BED 487

planted in Rabbah, where Yhwh supposedly had set it, for centuries. Thus, the steadfast nature of Og's bed also can be seen as highlighting the enduring power ofYhwh.

IV. The Significance of Iron

According to Assyrian inscriptions, Marduk's bed was adorned with golden rods and golden raindrops, covered in precious stones, embellished with dragon carvings, and supported by eight sculptured female genii standing on claw feet.28

Alongside this extravagant bed and other bejeweled royal couches described in Neo-Assyrian conquests, King Og's iron bed appears to be a rather plain piece of furniture. As Millard has noted, however, iron would have been a rare and highly desired material during the Late Bronze Age, when the conquest of King Og sup­posedly occurred. The Mari tablets and other archaeological evidence indicate that iron was available in limited quantities as early as the Middle Bronze Age, when it was treated as a precious metal and used alongside gold and lapis luzuli for pur­poses of jewelry making and sumptuous adornment.29 Moreover, the Hittite Annita Text, which is thought to date from about 1300 B.CE., preserves the record of a gift offered to King Annita by the ruler of Purushkhanda, which consisted of "a throne of iron and a staff (?) of iron."30 The fact that an iron chair was considered a worthy present for the king suggests that other pieces of royal furniture—such as King Og's bed—may also have been embellished with iron at this time.

Although it is impossible for us to identify the referent of *7Γΰ t£H37 with cer­tainty, it is reasonable to suppose that an artifact resembling a large iron bed would have been located in Rabbah at the time Deut 3:11 was written. Otherwise, the author's reference to a nonexistent object would fail to lend credibility to the description of Og as one of the Rephaim. (Although Rabbah is located about fifty miles from Jerusalem, the city is not so distant that the Judahite audience would have been totally unfamiliar with its attractions or unable to travel there, especially given its position along major Near Eastern trade routes.) Based on the archaeo­logical evidence presented by Millard, it is historically plausible that there may indeed have been an ancient bedstead inlaid with iron at Rabbah, a remnant of the Late Bronze Age. The author of Deut 3:11 may have pointed to this antiquarian artifact and claimed it as the iron bed of the hoary Transjordanian king in an attempt to authenticate the embellished tale of King Og's defeat.

Regardless of whether the description of Og's *?PQ Í2H37 corresponded to an actual iron bed in Rabbah, however, the symbolic value of iron is undeniable.

28 Millard, "Another Babylonian Chronicle Text," 23. 29 Millard, "King Og's Iron Bed and Other Ancient Ironmongery," 487-88. 30 Ibid., 488.

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Because iron was recognized as the hardest metal in antiquity, Near Eastern texts frequently use iron in figurative expressions to describe something that is exceed­ingly strong or impermeable.31 In Jer 1:18, Yhwh promises to defend Jeremiah against his hostile audience by metaphorically turning the prophet into "a fortified city, a pillar of iron, walls of bronze." In other instances, iron signifies an oppres­sive force. Among the plethora of curses in store for those guilty of defying Yhwh's commands is subjugation to a hostile enemy, as described in Deut 28:48: "He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until it destroys you." The description of Og's bed as iron may therefore have accentuated the king's fearsome demeanor and his seemingly impregnable fortifications. Further, given that the bed of Marduk and other royal beds were important symbols of political and military power in the Neo-Assyrian period, the description of Og's bed as made of the strongest metal suggests that the one capable of seizing such a bed was a force to be reckoned with.

The dread inspired by iron objects is also evidenced in the Israelites' attitude toward the prospect of invading a land whose inhabitants possessed iron chariots. Despite the proven power of Yhwh their god, the tribe of Joseph protests when Joshua commands them to conquer additional territory in Canaan, expressing fear because "every Canaanite living in the valley area has an iron chariot" (Josh 17:16). In the period of the judges, Yhwh rebukes the chronically rebellious Israelites by handing them over to the Canaanite king Jabin, who owns nine hun­dred iron chariots and oppresses the Israelites mercilessly. In addition to facing Canaan's daunting iron chariots, the Israelites are paralyzed with fear at the thought of encountering the native inhabitants of the land—the dreaded Rephaim.

V. King Og, the Last of the Rephaim

Even Moses, the stalwart leader of the Israelites, appears to have expressed dismay upon seeing King Og of Bashan, since in both the Numbers and the Deuteronomy accounts, Yhwh offers Moses special encouragement when King Og marches out to meet the Israelites with his troops. Despite Og's intimidating demeanor, Moses and the Israelites faithfully engage the enemy in battle as Yhwh had commanded them, and they are rewarded with an astonishing victory. The suc­cessful outcome of this battle stands in stark contrast to the Israelites' first attempt to launch a conquest of the promised land from Kadesh-barnea (Deut 1:19-45). At

31 See Paula M. McNutt, The Forging of Israel: Iron Technology, Symbolism and Tradition in Ancient Society (JSOTSup 108, The Social World of Biblical Antiquity 8; Sheffield: Almond, 1990) esp. 219-23; eadem, Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999).

KING OG'S IRON BED 489

that time, the Israelites failed to respond obediently to the battle call of Yhwh because of their fear. After being rebuked by Moses for their craven behavior, the Israelites repent and decide to obey Yhwh's command. Because of their initial reluctance, however, Yhwh refuses to accompany the Israelites, and as a result they experience a devastating defeat at the hands of their enemies.

Both Numbers and Deuteronomy attribute the Israelites' trepidation to the discouraging report of the spies who had been sent to reconnoiter the land. Num­bers 13:32b-33 indicates that the Israelites are afraid to invade Canaan because the spies reported that it was inhabited by Nephilim: "All the people that we saw in its midst are men of stature; there we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim) and we felt like grasshoppers and we looked like grasshoppers."32

Similarly, Deuteronomy quotes the Israelites as exclaiming: "Our brothers have caused our hearts to melt, saying, 'The people are bigger and taller than we are. The cities are great, with walls in the heavens! We even saw the Anakites there! '" (1:28).

After relaying the report of the spies, Numbers never again mentions the giant Nephilim. The author of Deuteronomy, however, later relates that Og is the last of the Rephaim (3:11). Perhaps the author decided to diverge from the Numbers source and place Og among the Rephaim in order to clarify or correct perceived shortcomings of the original account. For instance, presenting Og as one of the Rephaim helps to explain Moses' apprehension upon seeing King Og. The Num­bers account does not offer any particular reason why Moses should experience misgivings before the battle at Edrei and why he would have required words of reassurance from Yhwh. Anyone who heard this story may therefore have assumed that Moses is displaying undue cowardice. Yet, if Og is not an ordinary king but a gigantic warrior, it is reasonable to expect that Moses would regard his opponent with a greater degree of trepidation.

Elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the author likewise provides supplementary infor­mation to explain potential gaps in the source material. In retelling the episode of the golden calf from Exodus 32, for example, Deuteronomy aptly addresses the guilt of Aaron, the ringleader of the calf-making ceremony according to Exodus. Although Moses mildly rebukes his wayward brother in Exod 32:21, at no time does Yhwh express displeasure toward Aaron in the Exodus account. Rather, Yhwh's anger burns solely against the people, many of whom are slain as a result. The author of Deuteronomy, however, seems to be troubled by the omission of any consequence for Aaron's actions in Exodus and resolves this problematic gap by having Moses testify: "Yhwh was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him, so I also prayed on behalf of Aaron at that time" (Deut 9:20). Thus, in contrast

My thanks to Jon D. Levenson for suggesting this translation.

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to the Exodus story, Deuteronomy does not exculpate Aaron for his poor leader­ship; Yhwh is just as angry with Aaron as Yhwh is with the people, and all are saved through Moses' intercessory efforts.

Besides accounting for Moses' apprehension, the author of Deuteronomy may have specified that Og is one of the Rephaim in order to improve the narrative structure of the Israelites' conquest as presented in Numbers.33 Both Numbers and Deuteronomy relate that the Israelites were forced to dwell in the desert for thirty-eight years because they were afraid to confront the huge inhabitants of Canaan. Only Deuteronomy, however, allows the Israelites to redeem themselves for their initial lack of faith and gives Yhwh the opportunity to display giant-slaying skills. By declaring Og a giant, Deuteronomy brings the story of the Israelite conquest full circle: at first the Israelites did not trust Yhwh, were afraid to fight the enor­mous Anakim, and were therefore punished with a long period of exile in the desert (Deut 1:34-40). After their wilderness experience, the Israelites trust Yhwh and obey the divine command to engage the colossal King Og in battle. Whereas their first attempt to combat giant beings ended in disaster, the second attempt results in an astounding victory and sets a hopeful tone for a successful Israelite conquest of the land west of the Jordan.

In fact, the Book of Joshua indicates that the Israelites' defeat of Og and Sihon strikes fear into the hearts of other Canaanite rulers, and the Israelites' redoubtable reputation assists them as they continue their conquest across the Jordan. At Jeri­cho, for instance, the prostitute Rahab agrees to aid the Israelite spies because she realizes that the Israelites will succeed in their quest to take the city: "For we heard how Yhwh dried up the waters of the Red Sea in front of you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, how you annihilated them" (Josh 2:10). Rahab associates the defeat of Sihon and Og with the miraculous events surrounding the Egyptian exodus. Psalms 135 and 136 also equate Yhwh's conquest of Og with the fearsome wonders Yhwh performed against Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. By making King Og into a giant, then, Deuteronomy constructs a neat narrative cycle with a clear message: without

3 3 In other cases, too, the author of Deuteronomy reworks source material in a way that improves the narrative structure of the Israelites' pre-conquest history. While Deuteronomy affirms that a revelation takes place at Horeb (chap. 5), for example, it also states that Moses teaches a sec­ond set of "statutes and ordinances" (D'ODltfam Ο^ΠΠ) to the Israelites after their thirty-eight years of desert wandering. Since the rebellious generation who had heard the laws at Horeb is said to have died off in the wilderness, Deuteronomy corrects a narrative flaw in the earlier E source that states that all laws were given at Horeb. According to the E source, all the Israelites who had witnessed Yhwh's lawgiving were dead; their living descendants might thus be exonerated for their shortcom­ings, since they themselves had never heard the laws of Yhwh presented by Moses. Deuteronomy's account of a second lawgiving occurring immediately before the Israelites enter the land emphasizes the people's responsibility to obey these laws and highlights their hope for living well and long in the land.

KING OG'S IRON BED 491

Yhwh on their side, the Israelites should expect a crushing defeat, but with the help of Yhwh—which can be secured by trusting Yhwh and obeying the divine commands—victory is guaranteed, even against the most terrifying enemy.

There is evidence to suggest that the Rephaim, besides being feared as giant warriors, may have been regarded as semidivine beings. Genesis 6:4 implies that the related Nephilim were born from the union of gods and human women: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterwards, because the sons of gods slept with the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. They were the mighty ones of antiquity, the famous men." Numbers notes that the Anakites descended from these renowned Nephilim (13:33), and Deuteronomy states that the Anakites are considered to be Rephaim (2:11); it therefore appears that Nephilim and Rephaim were closely associated terms that may have referred to the same mythic race of giants sprung from gods. In addition to the biblical sug­gestion of supernatural origins, evidence from Ugarit points to divine affiliations for King Og, the last of the Rephaim. In one Ugaritic text, the god Rapa'u (Ugaritic rp*u, a cognate of the Hebrew rëp&îm), also known as the King of Eternity,34 is said to have lived in the same region as Og, in Ashtaroth and Edrei.35 (Deuteron­omy 1:4 refers to "Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei.")

Deuteronomy's description of King Og as the last of the Rephaim could thus be understood as strengthening the affinity between two colossal beds owned by Og and Marduk, because it implies that Og—like Marduk—was a divine being. By placing Og among the Rephaim, the author may have wished to convey that Yhwh is capable of defeating other gods and stripping them of their opulent beds, just as the Assyrians subjugated the Babylonians and confiscated Marduk's giant bed. This apotheosis of Og fits nicely into the heightened conquest account in Deut 3:1-11, which is presented as having been enacted exclusively by Yhwh. The infla­tion of Og's status highlights the extraordinary nature of Yhwh's Transjordanian conquest and magnifies the glory of Israel's God.

VI. Summary

In attempting to understand the perplexing reference to King Og's "iron bed" in Deut 3:11, scholars have primarily been concerned with reconstructing the most historically plausible *7Γΰ ÉHS? based on archaeological evidence. The traditional

34 Scott Noegel, "The Aegean Ogygos and the Biblical Og of Bashan: Reflections of the Same Myth," ZA W110 ( 1998) 411 -26, here 416.

35 Mark S. Smith, "Rephaim," ABD 4:674-76; see also idem, God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World (FAT 57; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); idem, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); idem, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).

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conclusion that the ^ΠΠ teny should be imagined as a type of tomb (a basalt sar­cophagus or dolmen), however, is historically and linguistically dubious. I have therefore directed my interpretive efforts toward reconstructing a historically sit­uated narrative in which the image of a literal iron bed would be sensible and evocative. When considered in light of ancient Near Eastern military practices, King Og's *?ΓΏ Ûnj7 can be understood in its literal sense as an important battle trophy. The correlation between the dimensions given for King Og's bed and the measurements of Marduk's bed in the Esagil Tablet suggests that the author of Deuteronomy may have intended to allude to Marduk's bed. If so, the description of Og's bed would have had significant political implications, since Marduk's bed was a well-known symbol of power in the Neo-Assyrian empire. Although Judah's autonomy must have appeared tenuous at best in the seventh century, Deuteron­omy's reference to Og's bed may have encouraged nationalistic hope. By recount­ing how Yhwh had crushed the colossal King Og and captured a royal bed as grand as Marduk's, the author asserts that Yhwh is capable of competing with current international superpowers, and that the Israelite warrior god might again rise up to battle on behalf of the beleaguered people.

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