Deuteronomy 3:4

And we took all his cities at that time,.... Not only Edrei where the battle was fought, and Ashteroth his capital city, but all the rest in his kingdom: there was not a city which we took not from them; not one stood out, but all surrendered on summons; the number of which follows: three score cities; which was a large number for so small a country, and shows it to be well inhabited: all the region of Argob; which was a small province of the kingdom of Og in Bashan: Aben Ezra and Jarchi observe, that it was called after a man, i.e. whose name was Argob; the Targum of Onkelos names it Tracona, and the Targum of Jonathan Targona, the same with Trachonitis in Josephus and other authors; see Luke 3:1, Jerom relates (h) that in his time, about Gerasa, a city of Arabia, fifteen miles from it to the west, there was a village which was called Arga, which seems to carry in it some remains of the ancient name of this country; and the Samaritan version, in all places where Argob is, calls it Rigobaah; and in the Misnah (i) mention is made of a place called Ragab, beyond Jordan, famous for its being the second place for the best oil. (h) De loc. Heb. fol. 87. M. (i) Misn. Menachot, c. 8. sect. 3.

(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.

Verse 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. Deuteronomy 3:4

Threescore cities - Probably the cities of Jair in Bashan described in Deuteronomy 3:14 as Bashan-havoth-jair. All the region of Argob - The Hebrew word here rendered "region," means literally "rope" or "cable"; and though undoubtedly used elsewhere in a general topographical sense for portion or district (e. g. Joshua 17:5), has a special propriety in reference to Argob (mod. Lejah). The name Argob means "stone-heap," and is paraphrased by the Targums, Trachonitis Luke 3:1, or "the rough country;" titles designating the more striking features of the district. Its borders are compared to a rugged shore-line; hence, its description in the text as "the girdle of the stony country," would seem especially appropriate. (Others identify Argob with the east quarter of the Hauran.)

3-8. Argob was the capital of a district in Bashan of the same name, which, together with other fifty-nine cities in the same province, were conspicuous for their lofty and fortified walls. It was a war of extermination. Houses and cities were razed to the ground; all classes of people were put to the sword; and nothing was saved but the cattle, of which an immense amount fell as spoil into the hands of the conquerors. Thus, the two Amorite kings and the entire population of their dominions were extirpated. The whole country east of the Jordan—first upland downs from the torrent of the Arnon on the south to that of the Jabbok on the north; next the high mountain tract of Gilead and Bashan from the deep ravine of Jabbok—became the possession of the Israelites.

4 . all the region of Argob ] So Deuteronomy 13 f.; 1 Kings 4:13 and nowhere else. The Heb. for region means a definitely measured or outlined piece of land, and ’Argob seems connected with regeb, clod , and analogous to our ‘glebe.’ The Targums take it as Trachonitis or the Trachon of the Greek period, now the Lejá, the mass of lava, 24 miles by 10 to 20, which lies on Ḥauran like an ebony glacier with irregular crevasses. Sharply marked off by its abrupt edge from the surrounding plain it holds considerable means of subsistence, with the ruins of many villages and towns, and might well have been, at this as at other periods, the centre or distinctive feature of a province or kingdom. The identification with ’Argob, accepted by many, is thus not unnatural; nor if we take ’Argob as meaning ‘clumpy’ is this an unsuitable name for the cleft masses of lava, like frozen mud, of which it is composed. But other parts of Ḥauran are also distinct from the rest, e.g. the fertile en-Ṇukra or ‘Hollow Hearth’ of the Arabs; or the almost as fertile W. slope of the Jebel Ḥauran. Both of these bear ruins of ancient towns, while some may be of immemorial antiquity. Nothing however has been discovered either there or throughout Bashan which is recognisable as older than the Greek period.—Euseb. and Jer. give Ragaba as a village near Geresa, in Gile‘ad, cp. Jos. XIII. Ant. xv. 5; and to-day Rajeb or Rujeb is the name of a Wâdy and village also in Gile‘ad.

The Help of God in the Conquest of the Kingdom of Og of Bashan. - Deuteronomy 3:1 . After the defeat of king Sihon and the conquest of his land, the Israelites were able to advance to the Jordan. But as the powerful Amoritish king Og still held the northern half of Gilead and all Bashan, they proceeded northwards at once and took the road to Bashan, that they might also defeat this king, whom the Lord had likewise given into their hand, and conquer his country (cf. Numbers 21:33-34 ). They smote him at Edrei, the modern Dra, without leaving him even a remnant; and took all his towns, i.e., as is here more fully stated in Deuteronomy 3:4 ., "sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan." These three definitions refer to one and the same country. The whole region of Argob included the sixty towns which formed the kingdom of Og in Bashan, i.e., all the towns of the land of Bashan, viz., (according to Deuteronomy 3:5 ) all the fortified towns, besides the unfortified and open country towns of Bashan. חבל, the chain for measuring, then the land or country measured with the chain. The name "region of Argob," which is given to the country of Bashan here, and in Deuteronomy 3:4 , Deuteronomy 3:13 , Deuteronomy 3:14 , and also in 1 Kings 4:13 , is probably derived from רגוב, stone-heaps, related to רגב, a clump or clod of earth ( Job 21:33 ; Job 38:38 ).