God’s Word for You

Numbers 21:32-35 Og and Fellowship

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, November 8, 2021

32 Moses sent spies to Jazer. They took its towns and drove out the Amorites who were there. 33 They turned and went up on the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan came out with all his people to confront Israel in battle at Edrei.

Jazer is a name we struggle with. It was obviously ahead of the Israelites, and a location about 15 miles north of Heshbon has been proposed. Jeremiah mentions it, but he also describes it as having its own “sea” (Jeremiah 48:32). There is nothing like this in the region. If the place north of Heshbon is correct, then perhaps it had a good spring that fed the river Jabbok. Was there a large oasis there in former times that was so bountiful that Jeremiah might have called it, at least in mockery, a “sea”? At any rate, Moses sent spies there, and with no quibbling reported at all, Israel defeated whatever resistance was encountered, and Moses captured it along with the surrounding towns. The Amorites were defeated once again. Of the three Amorite regions, two had fallen. Now there was only one real force left, and that was far to the north in Bashan. Bashan is the hilly region east of the Sea of Galilee (Psalm 68:15) known for its excellent grazing (Jeremiah 50:7; Ezekiel 39:18) and for the size and strength of its animals, especially the cattle (Psalm 22:12; Amos 4:1).

The king of Bashan, a giant named Og, assembled his army at the fortress of Edrei. Edrei is almost due east of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee (a little to the south), about thirty miles or so from the Jordan.

Og was “one of the last of the Rephaites,” a gigantic man, whose bed was “made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide” (Deuteronomy 3:11). That’s about the size of three queen-sized beds laid side by side by side [ ][ ][ ]. That’s a lot of bed, and I wouldn’t want to have to carry the iron frame up any stairs. The Rephaites were a race of giants who were mentioned as being struck in the raid by king Kedorlaomer in the days of Abraham and Lot (Genesis 14:5). A remnant of their race lived four hundred years after Moses’s time in the days of King David. This was not Goliath, who was from a similar race, but rather a warrior called Sippai, defeated by one of David’s mighty men (1 Chronicles 20:4).

34 The LORD said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have delivered him into your hand along with all his people and his land. You will do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”

Moses will retell the account of this battle in Deuteronomy 3:1-7, adding the number (sixty) of fortified cites that were destroyed or captured and also “a great many unwalled villages” (Deuteronomy 3:5). God told Moses to press the attack, and that he had already given Israel this battle. The people attacked the Amorites who had lined up against them at Edrei, and Israel was victorious.

The course of the winding river that cuts through the hills near Edrei creates a dramatic landscape. The deep gorge is overlooked on all sides by towering hills. This creates terrain that would be difficult for any army to fight in using hand-to-hand combat, and it would be challenging even with modern vehicles. Perhaps this is why Og took his stand there. We are not told how the battle progressed, but I suspect that if Og divided his force in any way it would have been to Israel’s advantage. Since we know that Og’s sons were involved in this battle, one or more of them may have been commanding a wing of his army.

If Israel could have crossed the river at more than one point, both above and below Edrei, for example, their force of more than half a million warriors (Numbers 11:21, 26:51) would have been ample, even broken into smaller groups, to defeat any resistance on Edrei’s flanks. From there the wings of Moses’ army could have closed in on Edrei from more than one direction in a pincer attack, also cutting off any aid that might have been sought. However it was done, Israel was given the victory by the Lord.

35 So they struck him down along with his sons and all his people until there were no survivors. Then they took possession of his land.

“No survivors” was the will of God for all of the Canaanites that inhabited the promised land. This was not a matter of cruelty, but a matter of preserving the people’s holiness and devotion to the Lord. When God’s people mix with people of different faiths, the same thing always happens. The group tends to find a “least common denominator faith,” and that always means that there will no longer be total devotion to the Lord. This is true today when a church with a solid Christian faith is forced into some kind of fellowship with a church that has no firm confession of faith. The watered-down faith will erode what was solid, unless good preaching and teaching brings the second group to accept the solid confession of the first group. Something like this also happens in marriages when one spouse is a faithful Christian but marries outside their fellowship, or even outside their faith. Regular worship quickly dissolves into more of a ‘sometimes’ worship, and hard feelings are avoided by letting go of ties and friendships in the church.

Remember that fellowship is not chosen, but it is discovered, based on correct teaching and beliefs. When two or more churches disagree on doctrine, the solution is for the doctrinally solid group, if resisted, to leave the fellowship. This assumes that there was an attempt “correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2). If the group that is lax in their doctrine and pushes back against the word of God, they should be left to their unbelief with a warning. “After that, have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:5), because “you must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:11).

When a Christian realizes that the church he has joined does not teach what is in accord with Scripture, he might question the minister, but in the end he will either need to put up with some of the false teaching because there is no other church he can reach, or else he must leave them. “A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful” (Proverbs 14:25). John says: “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God” (2 John 1:9). And Paul says: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8). It wouldn’t be easy to stay in a church that was clinging to false doctrine. C.F.W. Walther warns: “False doctrine is poison to the soul. A dinner party drinking from cups containing a mixture of arsenic can drink physical death from its cups. In the same way, an audience can invite spiritual and eternal death by listening to a sermon that contains a mixture of the poison of false doctrine. A person can be deprived of his soul’s salvation by a single false comfort or a single false reproof administered to him. This is all the more easy because we are all naturally more accessible to the shining and dazzling light of human reason than to the divine truth. For “an unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

What about different beliefs in a marriage? The solution with a marriage might need to be some counseling, but teaching will have to be done in any case. If that isn’t possible, then the spouse who still clings to Jesus must pray for strength and faith. Remember that what the apostles proclaim is the truth. “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). At the same time, we must remember the words of Paul: “If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13). The vow of marriage is binding even when one is bound to an unbeliever. But pray for strength, and that you may “hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). Remember the patience of Moses’ forty years with a rebellious nation, even though he lost his temper a few times, and let your prayer also be, “Deal with your servant according to your love” (Psalm 119:124).

Peace to you. May God keep us safe in his saving word, and may he always deal with us according to his mercy and his love.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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