Deuteronomy 3:10

All the cities of the plain,.... There was a plain by Medeba, and Heshbon and her cities were in a plain, with some others given to the tribe of Reuben, Joshua 13:16 . and all Gilead; Mount Gilead, and the cities belonging to it, a very fruitful country, half of which fell to the share of the Reubenites, and the rest to the half tribe of Manasseh: and all Bashan; of which Og was king, called Batanea, a very fertile country, as before observed: unto Salcah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan; which seem to be frontier cities of the latter: see Deuteronomy 1:4. The former, Adrichomius (p) says, was situated by the city Geshur and Mount Hermon, and was the boundary of the country of Bashan to the north; and according to Benjamin of Tudela (q), it was half a day's journey from Gilead: as Edrei seems to be its boundary to the south. (p) Thestrum Terrae Sanct. p. 94. (q) Itinerar. p. 57.

Verse 10. - The different portions of the conquered territory are here mentioned. 1. The plain ( הַמִּישׁור , the level country); the table-land south of Mount Gilead, as far as the Arnon. 2. The whole of Gilead ; the hilly country north of the Jabbok, between Heshbon and Bashan, between the northern and southern table-land. 3. All Bashan , as far eastward as Salchah, the modern Szal-khat or Szarkhad, about seven hours to the east of Busra, and northwards to Edrei, hod . Edra, Ezra or Edhra, an extensive ruin to the west of Busra, still partially inhabited. Deuteronomy 3:10

Salchah - Compare Joshua 12:5 ; 1 Chronicles 5:11 , where it is named as belonging to the tribe of Gad. It lies seven hours' journey to the southeast of Bostra or Bozrah of Moab. As the eastern border city of the kingdom of Bashan it was no doubt strongly fortified. Edrei - Compare Numbers 21:33 note.

9. Hermon—now Jebel-Es-Sheick—the majestic hill on which the long and elevated range of Anti-Lebanon terminates. Its summit and the ridges on its sides are almost constantly covered with snow. It is not so much one high mountain as a whole cluster of mountain peaks, the highest in Palestine. According to the survey taken by the English Government Engineers in 1840, they were about 9376 feet above the sea. Being a mountain chain, it is no wonder that it should have received different names at different points from the different tribes which lay along the base—all of them designating extraordinary height: Hermon, the lofty peak; "Sirion," or in an abbreviated form "Sion" (De 4:48), the upraised, glittering; "Shenir," the glittering breastplate of ice.

10 . all the cities of , etc.] This follows immediately on Deuteronomy 3:8 , showing that Deuteronomy 3:9 is an inserted gloss, and details the land summarised in 8, from S. to N. the plain ] Rather, Plateau (Heb. ham-Mishôr ), i.e. of Mo‘ab; E, Numbers 21:10 : field of M . all Gilead ] From the N. end of the Plateau (exact frontier uncertain) up to the Yarmûk; divided into halves by the Jabboḳ. all Bashan ] All N. of the Yarmûk; see on Deuteronomy 3:1 . unto Salecah and Edrei ] Salekah (with soft k) is the Arab. Ṣalkhad, the Ṣarkhad of the Arab. geographers, the present Ṣalkhad (Merrill, E. of Jordan , 50 ff.; Burckhardt, 100 f.), some 40 miles E.S.E. of Edre‘i on the S.W. slope of the Jebel Ḥauran or ed-Drûz. Cp. Joshua 12:5 ; Joshua 13:11 . It would represent, therefore, the S.E. limit of ‘Ôg’s kingdom, while Edre‘i lay near the W. end of the same frontier. Why have two sites on the S. of Bashan been selected to define a conquest already described as extending N. to Ḥermôn? We should expect: from Edre‘i even to Salekah , or to some site further N. The text is confirmed, however, by Sam. and LXX. Some therefore take Edre‘i here, not as the mod. Dera‘at ( Deuteronomy 3:1 ) but as Edhra‘ or Zor‘a near the S.W. corner of the Lejá. This, however, helps little.

The different portions of the conquered land were the following: המּישׁר, the plain, i.e., the Amoritish table-land, stretching from the Arnon to Heshbon, and in a north-easterly direction nearly as far as Rabbath-Ammon, with the towns of Heshbon, Bezer, Medeba, Jahza, and Dibon ( Deuteronomy 4:43 ; Joshua 13:9 , Joshua 13:16-17 , Joshua 13:21 ; Joshua 20:8 ; Jeremiah 48:21 .), which originally belonged to the Moabites, and is therefore called "the field of Moab" in Numbers 21:20 . "The whole of Gilead," i.e., the mountainous region on the southern and northern sides of the Jabbok, which was divided into two halves by this river. The southern half, which reached to Heshbon, belonged to the kingdom of Sihon ( Joshua 12:2 ), and was assigned by Moses to the Reubenites and Gadites ( Deuteronomy 3:12 ); whilst the northern half, which is called "the rest of Gilead" in Deuteronomy 3:13 , the modern Jebel Ajlun, extending as far as the land of Bashan (Hauran and Jaulan), belonged to the kingdom of Og ( Joshua 12:5 ), and was assigned to the Manassite family of Machir ( Deuteronomy 3:15 , and Joshua 13:31 ; cf. v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 229, 230). "And all Bashan unto Salcah and Edrei." All Bashan included not only the country of Hauran (the plan and mountain), but unquestionably also the district of Jedur and Jaulan, to the west of the sea of Galilee and the upper Jordan, or the ancient Gaulonitis (Jos.

Ant. xviii. 4, 6, etc.), as the kingdom of Og extended to the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi (see at Deuteronomy 3:14 ). Og had not conquered the whole of the land of Hauran, however, but only the greater part of it. His territory extended eastwards to Salcah, i.e., the present Szalchat or Szarchad, about six hours to the east of Bozrah, south of Jebel Hauran, a town with 800 houses, and a castle upon a basaltic rock, but uninhabited (cf. v. Raumer, Pal. p. 255); and northwards to Edrei, i.e., the northern Edrei (see at Numbers 21:33 ), a considerable ruin on the northwest of Bozrah, three or four English miles in extent, in the old buildings of which there are 200 families living at present (Turks, Druses, and Christians). By the Arabian geographers (Abulfeda, Ibn Batuta) it is called Sora, by modern travellers Adra or Edra (v. Richter), or Oezraa (Seetzen), or Ezra (Burckhardt), and Edhra (Robinson, App. 155). Consequently nearly the whole of Jebel Hauran, and the northern portion of the plain, viz., the Leja, were outside the kingdom of Og and the land of Bashan, of which the Israelites took possession, although Burckhardt reckons Ezra as part of the Leja.