Psalms 136:20
and Og king of Bashan— His loving devotion endures forever.
BSB
ASV
And Og king of Bashan; For his lovingkindness endureth for ever;
KJV
And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for ever:
1834–1892
THESE six verses iterate and reiterate the same fact. They rehearse and repeat the same reflection. Is the tautology tedious? Do the chimes weary you with their monotony? No. And this is a veritable charm in poetry. When the poet touches upon some important theme which illuminates his soul and kindles his nobler passions to a flame, he is very apt to dwell upon it with enthusiasm, inclined to pursue it with eagerness, to follow it up with feeling and echo it over and over again with strong and yet stronger emotion.
It is good to enter into the detail of God's favours and not to view them in the gross, and in each instance to observe, and own, that God's mercy endureth for ever.
And Og the king of Bashan. He was of the race of the giants, but he was routed like a pygmy when he entered the lists with Israel's God. The Lord's people were called upon to fight against him, but it was God who won the victory. The fastnesses of Bashan were no defence against Jehovah. Og was soon ousted from his stronghold when the captain of the Lord's host led the war against him. He had to exchange his bedstead of iron for a bed in the dust, for he fell on the battle field.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk5
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Numbers 21:33Then they turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet them in battle at Edrei.
leads to
the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who had reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei and had remained as a remnant of the Rephaim. Moses had struck them down and dispossessed them,
When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we defeated them.
This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and then at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.
with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes…