Deuteronomy Chapter 3 verse 4 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - Threescore cities; probably the same as the Bashan-havoth jair, afterwards mentioned (ver. 14). The region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. The region of Argob comprised the kingdom of Og, and Bashan was another name for the same country; extending from the Jabbok to Hermon, and embracing both the northern part of Gilead, and what was afterwards in a stricter sense Bashan, viz. the land north of the Wady Zerka (hod. Jebel Ajlan) to Hermon. The name Argob is supposed by some to be given to the district from a town of that name, fifteen Roman miles eastward from Gerasa, a city of Arabia (Eusebius); but more probably it is derived from the character of the district, either as deep-soiled (from רֶגֶב, a clod), or as rugged and uneven (רְגוב, from רָגַב akin to רָגָם, to heap up), just as the neighboring district to the east and northeast received the name Traohonitis (from τραχών, rough, rugged); in the Targum, indeed, Trachona (טרכונא) is the name given here for Argob. This district is now known as the province of El-Lejah (The Retreat). It is described as oval in form, about twenty-two miles long by fourteen wide; a plateau elevated about thirty feet above the surrounding plain. Its features are most remarkable. It is composed of a thick stratum of black basalt, which seems to have been emitted in a liquid state from pores in the earth, and to have flowed out on all sides till the whole surface was covered. It is rent and shattered as if by internal convulsion. The cup-like cavities from which the liquid mass was projected are still seen, and also the wavy surface such as a thick liquid generally assumes which cools as it is flowing. There are deep fissures and yawning gulfs with rugged, broken edges; and there are jagged mounds that seem not to have been sufficiently heated to flow, but which were forced up by some mighty agency, and then rent and shattered to their centers. The rock is filled with air-bubbles, and is almost as hard as iron. (Dr. Porter, in Kitto, 'Biblical Cyclopaedia,' 3:1032; see also the same author's 'Five Years in Damascus,' 2:240, etc.; and 'The Giant Cities of Bashan'; Burckhardt, 'Travels in Syria,' p. 110, etc.; Wetstein, 'Reisebericht fib. Hauran,' p. 82, etc.; a paper by Mr. Cyrill Graham in the Cambridge Essays for 1858; and Smith's 'Dictionary,' art. 'Trachonitis.') The entire trans-Jordanic region was thus captured by the Israelites.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4, 5) These details are not given in Numbers. Professor Porter, in the Griant Cities of Bashan, has well described the impression made upon him by verifying this description in detail. "The whole of Bashan," he says, "is not larger than an ordinary English county." That "sixty walled cities, 'besides unwalled towns a great many,' should exist in a small province, at such a remote age, far from the sea, with no rivers and little commerce, appeared to be inexplicable. Inexplicable, mysterious though it appeared, it was true. On the spot, with my own eyes, I had now verified it. A list of more than one hundred ruined cities and villages, situated in these mountains alone, I had in my hands; and on the spot I had tested it, and found it accurate, though not complete." Many of the cities in the mountains are not ruins. Rooms, doors, bars are entire to this day. The region of Argob is distinctly marked out by its natural boundaries, and well described by the same writer.