Deuteronomy 3 Summary and Study Guide

“Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.” That was God’s answer to Moses, and Moses wrote it into his own farewell speech. This Deuteronomy 3 summary and study guide covers a chapter holding a giant’s defeat, a land handed out, and one prayer God would not grant.

Setting the Stage

Forty years before this chapter, twelve men were sent ahead to look over the land God had promised Israel. Ten came back saying the people living there were too large to fight, and the nation believed them. God’s answer was that the generation who refused would die in the desert, and their children would go in instead (Numbers 14:29-31).

Those children are the people Moses is speaking to now. They have already defeated one Amorite king, Sihon, on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Deuteronomy 3 puts them in front of a second king who is larger still, and Moses tells them how it went. For where this chapter sits in the wider book, see The Book of Deuteronomy Summary by Chapter.

Comprehensive Deuteronomy 3 Summary

Israel turns north toward Bashan, and Og its king marches out to meet them at Edrei rather than waiting behind his walls. God speaks before the battle, telling Moses not to be afraid of him, and grounding that command in something Israel has already watched happen: Og will fall exactly as Sihon fell. He does.

Sixty cities fall, and Moses describes what Israel was up against: every one of them had high walls, gates and a bar across the doors, the kind of defence a people coming out of forty years in the desert had little means to break. Then comes the note that explains why the warning of verse 2 was needed at all. Og was the last of the Rephaim in that region, and his iron bedstead was kept in the Ammonite capital, roughly thirteen and a half feet long.

Because the land is now Israel’s, Moses hands it out. Reuben and Gad receive the southern stretch, and half the tribe of Manasseh receives Gilead and Bashan. The grant carries a condition. Their fighting men must cross the Jordan armed and go ahead of the other tribes, leaving families and cattle behind, and they may not come home until every tribe has rest.

Since Joshua will lead that campaign, Moses charges him from what Joshua has seen with his own eyes. Then Moses makes a request of his own. He asks to cross over and see the land.

God refuses him and closes the subject, then answers with things Moses had not asked for. The chapter ends with Israel camped in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

One Word Summary

• Handover: land, courage and leadership all pass to someone else in this chapter.
• Enough: God’s answer to Moses is that what he already has is abundance.
• Inheritance: the first territory Israel keeps is measured out and assigned here.

In One Sentence

Israel defeats Og of Bashan and takes his sixty cities, Moses assigns the captured land to Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh on the condition that their soldiers fight for the other tribes first, and when Moses asks to cross the Jordan himself God refuses and tells him to strengthen Joshua instead.

Theme of Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3 is about a God who finishes what He starts, and who is free to finish it through someone other than the man who began it.

Three more run alongside it: God fights for His people, so the size of the enemy settles nothing; what God gives is held on His terms, so the tribes who get land first must fight for those who have none yet; and a consequence God attaches to sin can stand even after the sinner is forgiven. The chapter sets a victory Israel received as a gift beside a refusal Moses had to accept, and the same God stands behind both.

Deuteronomy 3 Outline

• Deuteronomy 3:1-3: Og king of Bashan comes out to fight at Edrei, God tells Moses not to fear him, and Israel defeats him completely.
• Deuteronomy 3:4-7: Israel captures sixty fortified cities and many open towns, destroys their people under God’s order, and keeps the livestock and goods.
• Deuteronomy 3:8-11: Moses states the full reach of the land taken from the two Amorite kings, notes the three names for Mount Hermon, and describes Og’s iron bedstead.
• Deuteronomy 3:12-15: Moses assigns the conquered land, giving the southern portion to Reuben and Gad and the rest of Gilead and Bashan to half the tribe of Manasseh.
• Deuteronomy 3:16-17: Moses fixes the borders of the Reubenite and Gadite territory, from the river Arnon to the Jabbok and west to the Jordan.
• Deuteronomy 3:18-20: Moses sets the condition, that their armed men cross ahead of the other tribes while families stay behind, until all Israel has rest.
• Deuteronomy 3:21-22: Moses charges Joshua to remember what he has seen God do and tells him the LORD will fight for him.
• Deuteronomy 3:23-25: Moses prays, praising God’s greatness and asking to cross over and see the good land.
• Deuteronomy 3:26-28: God refuses, closes the matter, sends Moses up Pisgah to look at the land, and tells him to strengthen Joshua.
• Deuteronomy 3:29: Israel remains in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Moses’ Prayer

The chapter records Moses praying in his own words, and God answering in His. It is one of the few prayers in Scripture kept together with a plain refusal. It falls into four parts.

• He addresses God as Master and by name (v.24). “O Lord GOD” joins the title for a master or owner with God’s covenant name. Moses uses that combination only twice in the whole book, here and in Deuteronomy 9:26, and both times he is asking for something.
• He praises before he asks (v.24). “thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?” Moses is saying God has only started to show him how great He is and how strong His hand is, and that no god anywhere can match what He does. He is arguing from what God has already done to what God might still do.
• He asks for one thing (v.25). “I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.” Moses asks only to cross the river and look at the country. He does not ask to lead it, own it, or be restored to his position.
• God answers with a refusal and three mercies (v.26-28). He will not hear the request and He closes the subject. Then He gives Moses a view of the whole land from the top of Pisgah, a successor to charge and strengthen, and the assurance that Israel will inherit what Moses only sees.

Paul later described something close to this. He asked the Lord three times to remove a physical trouble and was told, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God told Paul that what he already had was enough, which is the same answer Moses received in different words.

Observations from Deuteronomy 3

The Same Command Opens and Closes the Chapter (v.2, v.22)

God tells Moses “Fear him not” before the battle in verse 2, and Moses tells Joshua “Ye shall not fear them” in verse 22. Each time a reason follows straight after the command: God will hand the enemy over, and God Himself fights for them. The command travels from God to Moses to the man who will lead after him, so the courage Israel needs is passed down rather than worked up.

Moses Says “At That Time” Six Times (v.4, 8, 12, 18, 21, 23)

The phrase stitches the chapter’s four scenes into one remembered stretch of days. The same short season that took the cities also handed out the land, set the terms, charged Joshua, and heard Moses refused. Moses is not listing separate episodes from a career; he is telling one generation what happened in a few weeks that decided everything about their present position.

Moses Keeps Saying “I Gave,” Then Corrects It (v.12-21)

Six times across ten verses Moses speaks as the one acting: he says he gave the land in verses 12, 13, 15 and 16, and he says he commanded in verses 18 and 21. Then in that same verse 18 he puts the giving where it belongs.

“The LORD your God hath given you this land to possess it.” God gave the land; Moses only handed it out. That correction matters for how the chapter ends. Moses knew he was handing out something he did not own, and a few verses later the same Moses accepts that he will not go in.

God Is the Subject of Nearly Every Decisive Verb

The LORD said, the LORD delivered, the LORD has given, the LORD will give rest, the LORD has done, the LORD will fight, the LORD was angry, the LORD said again. Israel does the marching and the fighting, and God does the deciding.

That includes verse 26, where the LORD is the one who refuses Moses, so the same hand that hands over kings also closes a door on His friend. Israel is never told that God is on their side because they are Israel; they are told to go where God is already going, and the promise of verse 22 belongs to that errand and not to any war they might pick for themselves.

Israel Was Still Singing About This Battle Centuries Later (v.3, v.8, v.21)

Moses will never let Og stand on his own. He is measured against Sihon in verse 2, destroyed like Sihon in verse 6, and the two are summed up as “the two kings of the Amorites” in verse 8 and “these two kings” in verse 21. That pairing outlived everyone in the chapter. Long afterwards Israel was still singing it in worship: “Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan” (Psalm 135:11).

The same two names come up again in Psalm 136, where each one is answered by the refrain “for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 136:19-20). A single day’s fighting east of the Jordan became a permanent line in the nation’s songbook, and Israel filed it under mercy rather than under military history.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Did God Command Israel in Verse 6 to Kill the Women and Children of Every City?

This is the hardest verse in the chapter. “And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.” The Hebrew word behind “utterly destroyed” means to devote something to destruction as an act given over to God, and Scripture gives several reasons for it.

The judgment fell on settled wickedness rather than on ethnicity, and Israel is told plainly that they had earned nothing by it: “not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land” (Deuteronomy 9:5). Israel goes in because of what those nations had become, and the same verse that says so denies Israel any credit for it.

It was delayed for more than four centuries while God waited, telling Abraham that “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16). Its stated purpose was to stop Israel learning what those nations practised, including burning their own children (Deuteronomy 20:18; Leviticus 18:21). Mercy stayed open to anyone who turned, as it did for Rahab and her household (Joshua 6:25).

And when Israel later declined to carry the order out, the exact corruption God had warned about followed (Psalm 106:34-38). The verse stays hard to read. It shows God acting as judge over a people He had given four hundred years to turn, using Israel to carry out a sentence rather than handing them a country to plunder.

Was Og Really a Giant, and How Tall Was He?

Scripture gives the size of Og’s bed and never gives the height of the man. “nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man” (v.11). Nine cubits by four, at roughly eighteen inches to a cubit, is about thirteen and a half feet by six. If a bed ran a cubit longer than the person in it, Og stood near twelve feet; commentators who allow a wider margin still put him around nine.

Both are estimates built on an assumption the verse does not make. There is also an old question about the bed itself. The word can mean a bier or a coffin, and the “iron” may be the black basalt of that region, which carries a high iron content and was called iron locally. The text asserts three things: Og was the last of the Rephaim in his area, his bed was large enough to be kept as a curiosity in another nation’s capital, and Israel beat him anyway.

What Does Verse 26 Mean When Moses Says God Was Angry With Him for Israel’s Sake?

Moses was barred for what Moses himself did, and Scripture says so twice: “because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Numbers 20:12), and “ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh” (Deuteronomy 32:51). God says Moses failed to treat Him as holy in front of the people, and that this happened at the waters of Meribah.

So the phrase “for your sakes” points to the circumstances that surrounded the sin rather than to a swap in which Moses carried Israel’s penalty. The Psalms describe the people at those same waters: “they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips” (Psalm 106:33). Israel’s provocation was the occasion of Moses’ failure. The failure was still his own.

Common Misunderstandings

• That God was postponing Moses’ entry rather than refusing it. Some treatments read verse 26 as God’s timing working itself out. The verse closes the subject: “speak no more unto me of this matter.” God gave Moses a view of the land and a successor, and He did not give him a later date.
• That Og survived the flood by holding on to the ark. This is a rabbinic tradition, not Scripture. The Bible states only that Og alone was left of that people in the territory he ruled (v.11), and it says nothing about how his people came to be there or how long he had lived.
• That the eastern tribes broke the promise of verses 18 to 20. Scripture reports the opposite. Joshua sent them home commending them: “ye have not left your brethren these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD your God” (Joshua 22:3). Joshua told them they had stayed with the other tribes for a long time and had kept what God commanded.
• That “the land of giants” in verse 13 describes a species. The Hebrew reads “the land of Rephaim,” and Rephaim is the name of a people. The King James renders it “giants” because they were unusually large, not because Scripture is classifying them as something other than human.

Christ Connection

The reason Moses cannot enter runs straight to Christ. At Meribah God told Moses to speak to a rock so that water would come out of it, and Moses struck it twice instead (Numbers 20:8-11).

Years earlier God had told him to strike a rock, and water came (Exodus 17:6). Paul says what that rock was: “and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul is telling the Corinthians that the rock which gave Israel water in the desert stood for Christ Himself.

Christ was struck once for sin and once only, and Scripture is firm that the offering is not repeated (Hebrews 10:12-14). Afterwards He is not struck but spoken to (Romans 10:13). When Moses hit the rock a second time in anger, he damaged a picture God had set up.

Scripture states the reason for his penalty plainly, and the Difficult Verses section above sets it out (Numbers 20:12). Many Bible teachers see the spoiled picture as part of what made that failure so serious.

Four other lines in this chapter reach toward Christ.

• A better Joshua. Joshua’s name in Hebrew is the name the Greek New Testament writes as Jesus. Hebrews argues from that overlap directly: “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day” (Hebrews 4:8). The writer means Joshua, and his point is that Joshua brought Israel into the land and still did not give them the final rest.
• The rest of verse 20. Moses makes rest for the other tribes the condition for going home. Hebrews takes up the same goal and says it is still outstanding: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). The rest Joshua could not finish is the rest Christ gives (Matthew 11:28).
• The promise of verse 22. Moses says the same thing again in Deuteronomy 31:6, adding “he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,” and it is that fuller wording the New Testament hands to the church: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper” (Hebrews 13:5-6). The assurance Joshua was given privately is spoken over ordinary believers.
• Moses stands in the land after all. He was told he would not cross the Jordan. Centuries later he is standing on a mountain inside that country, talking with Christ (Matthew 17:1-3; Luke 9:30-31). The consequence held for his lifetime and did not hold for ever.

When, Where, and Why

• When: the eleventh month of the fortieth year after Israel left Egypt (Deuteronomy 1:3), within weeks of Moses’ death. Conservative dating places this in the fifteenth or fifteenth-to-fourteenth century BC, and the exact year is debated.
• Where: the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River and opposite Jericho. The land described in the chapter runs north from the river Arnon to Mount Hermon, and several places named are locatable today: Chinnereth in verse 17 is the town that gave the Sea of Galilee its name, and “the salt sea” is the Dead Sea. Bashan here is the fertile upland country north-east of Galilee, known in Scripture for its cattle and its oaks (Amos 4:1; Isaiah 2:13). The camp site carries its own history. Beth-peor in verse 29 means the house of Peor, and Peor is where Israel had joined itself to a local god and lost twenty-four thousand people to a plague (Numbers 25:1-9). Moses gives Israel the law of God near the site of one of its worst failures, and he is buried in that same valley (Deuteronomy 34:6).
• Why: this closes the first of Moses’ three addresses, and its work is memory. Moses is speaking to people who were children during the plagues in Egypt and who have never fought for a homeland. Before he gives them law, he gives them evidence, so that the God who is about to command them is a God they have already watched keep His word.

Key Verses

“Ye shall not fear them: for the LORD your God he shall fight for you” (Deuteronomy 3:22).

Do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God is the one who will fight on your behalf. This is the sentence the whole chapter has been building toward, and Moses says it again to the entire nation shortly before he dies (Deuteronomy 31:6).

“O Lord GOD, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?” (Deuteronomy 3:24).

Master and LORD, You have only started to show me how great You are and how strong Your hand is, and there is no god anywhere in heaven or on earth who can match what You do. Moses opens his request with worship instead of with the request, and the answer still comes back no.

“But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see” (Deuteronomy 3:28).

Commission Joshua, put heart into him and make him strong, because he is the one who will cross at the head of this people and settle them in the country you are only going to look at. It is the last assignment God hands Moses in this chapter, and every part of it is about somebody else.

Key Lessons from Deuteronomy 3

• God ties His command not to fear to a victory Israel had already seen Him win, so remembering His past faithfulness is part of obeying Him now (v.2, v.21).
• The size of an enemy settles nothing when God has said He will fight (v.11, v.22).
• Receiving your own portion early does not release you from fighting for people who have not received theirs yet (v.18-20).
• A sin God has forgiven can still carry a consequence He does not lift, and that consequence is not the same as rejection (v.26).
• When God refuses a request, He may answer with mercies you did not think to ask for (v.27-28).
• The last work of a leader can be making the next one strong enough to finish what he cannot (v.28).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Deuteronomy 3.

Bible Study Questions

1. In verse 2, what reason does God give Moses for not fearing Og, and why would that particular reason have carried weight with this generation?
2. Moses says “I gave” repeatedly in verses 12 to 17, then says in verse 18 that the LORD gave them the land. What difference does that correction make?
3. Why were the two and a half tribes east of the Jordan forbidden to settle down as soon as they received their territory (v.18-20)?
4. Moses asks for nothing more than a look at the country in verse 25. What does the smallness of that request tell you about what he actually wanted?
5. God tells Moses in verse 26 to stop raising the matter. How would you tell the difference between a request God has settled and one He wants you to keep bringing?
6. Read verse 28 alongside verse 22. What did Moses have to believe about God in order to spend his last strength on Joshua?
7. Where has God already proved Himself to you in a way you could point Joshua to, as Moses points to the two kings?

Frequently Asked Questions

Deuteronomy 3, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

2 And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

3 So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining.

4 And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

5 All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.

6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.

7 But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.

8 And we took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto mount Hermon;

9 (Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion; and the Amorites call it Shenir;)

10 All the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, unto Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

12 And this land, which we possessed at that time, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, and half mount Gilead, and the cities thereof, gave I unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites.

13 And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.

14 Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi; and called them after his own name, Bashan-havoth-jair, unto this day.

15 And I gave Gilead unto Machir.

16 And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;

17 The plain also, and Jordan, and the coast thereof, from Chinnereth even unto the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, under Ashdoth-pisgah eastward.

18 And I commanded you at that time, saying, The LORD your God hath given you this land to possess it: ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war.

19 But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle, (for I know that ye have much cattle,) shall abide in your cities which I have given you;

20 Until the LORD have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and until they also possess the land which the LORD your God hath given them beyond Jordan: and then shall ye return every man unto his possession, which I have given you.

21 And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, Thine eyes have seen all that the LORD your God hath done unto these two kings: so shall the LORD do unto all the kingdoms whither thou passest.

22 Ye shall not fear them: for the LORD your God he shall fight for you.

23 And I besought the LORD at that time, saying,

24 O Lord GOD, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?

25 I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.

26 But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the LORD said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.

27 Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan.

28 But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see.

29 So we abode in the valley over against Beth-peor.