Seder 135: Deuteronomy 2-3---Victories over the Amorites

   In year 40 of the Exodus, God directed the Israelites not to bother their brother nations Edom, Moab, and Ammon.  On the other hand, he did have them defeat, and take the land occupied by, Sihon and Og.  At this point, apparently, the "iniquity of the Amorites" was complete (see Gen 15:16).  

The victories over Sihon and Og were total.  These were intended to be warmups for battles on the other side of the Jordan River.  Commentator Daniel Block has identified six characteristics of this kind of warfare:

1. God identifies the target.
2. God initiates the war.
3. God determines the strategy.
4. God accompanies Israel into battle.
5. God engages in psychological warfare, doing things like hardening Sihon's heart and striking fear into the hearts of the enemy.
6. God gives the victory.

The Israelites were facing large people and fortified cities, but there was no problem.  In describing these victories, Moses again is implicitly referring to the worries of the parents of this new generation 38 years before (Dt 1:26-28).  The rebels claimed that God had brought them out of Egypt in order for their children to be slaughtered by the Amorites.  Instead, it was the rebels who had died, while their children defeated the Amorites.    

Why had God mandated the defeat of Sihon and Og?  There are hints in the text that they were connected to evil forces that were especially opposed to God.  He was the last of the Rephaim, a race of giants (Dt 3:11).  The giants were related to the Nephilim, the offspring of rebellious angelic beings (Gen 6:4).  

In The Unseen Realm, p. 198, Michael Heiser points out that the dimensions of Og's bed, 9 cubits by 4 cubits, are the same as  the dimensions of the cultic bed in the ziggurat Etemenaki, which may have been the tower of Babel.  That bed was said to have been used by the god Marduk and his consort for annual fertility rituals.  The implication is that Og had some connection with this kind of false religion.

The book of Joshua shows that giants were a special target of the battles in the conquest of Canaan.  It was at this time in history that God had chosen to deal with them and the evil supernatural forces behind them.  

Moses urged the Israelites not to be afraid.  God would give them the victory.  Analogously, Jesus on the eve of his crucifixion urged his disciples not to be afraid (Jn 14:1, 27), and Paul at the end of his life urged Timothy not to be afraid (2 Tim 1).  On February 18, 2023, Kyle Kettering gave a sermon on 2 Timothy 1 at Church of the Messiah.