Og of Bashan: How Big Was the Last of the Giants?
The last of the Rephaim, whose iron bed, thirteen feet long, was kept on display as a trophy.
Og was king of Bashan, east of the Sea of Galilee. Deuteronomy 3:11 calls him the last of the remnant of giants and says his iron bed, nine cubits long, was in the Ammonite city of Rabbath.
Og was king of Bashan, the fertile volcanic plateau east of the Sea of Galilee that is today the Golan and southern Syria. The Israelites defeat him at Edrei on their way to Canaan (Numbers 21:33–35). Deuteronomy adds a remarkable detail: "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."
Nine cubits is about thirteen and a half feet. The mention of iron is striking for a Bronze Age setting, and the note that the bed is still on display in Rabbah, modern Amman, reads like a museum label. Joshua 12:4 says Og "was of the remnant of the giants, that dwelt at Ashtaroth and at Edrei."
Rabbinic legend made Og enormous. The Talmud says he tore up a mountain to hurl at the Israelite camp, but God sent ants to bore through it so it fell around his neck, and Moses killed him by striking his ankle. Other traditions say Og survived the Flood by riding on the outside of the ark, which explains how a giant existed after it. Archaeology adds context. A text from Ugarit mentions a divine king ruling at Ashtaroth and Edrei, the same two cities, and the Golan is dotted with Bronze Age dolmens, massive stone tombs that later people may have seen as giants' beds.
Deuteronomy points readers to where they could see Og's iron bed for themselves, in the Ammonite capital, as if citing a public monument.
Many scholars think the "bed" was a basalt sarcophagus or dolmen (basalt was sometimes called iron-stone), and that Og's giant status grew from local traditions about the Rephaim.
