dssdead-sea-scrolls
G — Biblically Based Apocryphal Works
Part 19
A fragmentary first-person account preserves the defeat of a giant enemy, most plausibly Og, king of Bashan, whose extraordinary dimensions — height measured in cubits, a spear likened to a cedar, a shield like a tower — are described in the language of holy war. The narrator credits neither his own strategy nor his weapons but declares plainly: 'The Lord our God broke him.' The type is clear: the overthrow of a giant adversary by covenant power rather than human strength, the same pattern that runs from Moses through David and forward into every last-days battle against entrenched opposition to the gathering.
1
Three small Cave fragments which partly overlap with 2Q22 published by M. Baillet represent a historical narrative of an unnamed speaker in the first person, and with the single actual name of Og, king of Bashan. Baillet and the editor of 4Q373, Eileen Schuller, wonder whether the narrator is David and the subject is his fight with Goliath, a theory based on a few verbal similarities to Samuel xvii, which cannot, however, easily account for the mention of Og, apart from his height which was comparable to that of the giant Goliath. S. Talmon, on the other hand, has argued that the topic of the fragment is more likely to be the defeat of Og by Moses, richly elaborated by Targum, Midrash and Talmud. On the whole, the second alternative seems slightly preferable. For the editio princeps, see E. Schuller and M. Bernstein, DJD, XXVIII, 199—204. 4Q373 1-2.. all his servants Og.. his height was.. and a half cubits and two cubits were his breadth.. a spear like a cedar tree.. a shield like a tower. The nimble-footed.. he who removed them seven stadia. I did not stand.. and I did not change. The Lord our God broke him. I prepared wounding slings together with bows and not.. for war to conquer fortified cities and to rout..
