What Does Deuteronomy 3:3 Mean?
So the LORD our God gave into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him until no survivor remained to him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The Hebrew frames victory as the LORD placing Og into Israel’s hand, then names the human consequence plainly: they strike until no survivor remains.
THE MEANING
The verse puts divine handover and human violence in one sentence: the LORD gives Og and all his people into “our hands,” and “we smote him” until no survivor remains. It leaves the totality of the killing visible inside the language of victory.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A divine handover means the victory is bloodless. The verse immediately names the striking and the absence of survivors.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתֵּן
wayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
“gave” in this verse is wayyitten. The word translated “delivered” is the ordinary verb for giving, setting, or placing; “into our hands” makes the transfer one of possession and power. The handover does not soften the outcome: the verse immediately names the striking and the absence of survivors.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This verb’s range is present beneath “delivered”: Og is handed over into Israel’s control.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This noun grows from the same give-root, whose range includes both giving and handing over; the verse specifies the violent consequence of this transfer.
וַנַּכֵּהוּ
vannakkehu
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
Strike, smite, wound.
The verb keeps the human subject visible: “we struck him.” Its root names physical striking, and the verse measures the result by the absence of any survivor.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
This noun from the same root makes the force of the verb concrete: the action is a strike, not merely an abstract victory.
makkeh: One who strikes.
מַכֶּה
This related form keeps the agent of the striking in view, matching the verse’s explicit “we.”
הִשְׁאִיר
hish'ir
GROWS FROM
שאר
sh-ʾ-r
Remain, be left; in this form, leave behind.
The clause denies leaving Og a survivor; its measure of completeness is the absence of any remainder. “Survivor” here is שָׂרִיד (sarid, survivor), a separate Hebrew word from the root of “left.”
ALSO GROWS
she'erit: Remnant, remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
This branch names what remains; the verse states that nothing of this kind is left.
she'ar: The rest, remainder.
שְׁאָר
The same root carries the idea of what is left over, sharpening the verse’s claim that no remainder survives.
THE PATTERN
The text can describe victory as a divine handover and immediately name the violence the recipients enact.
And Judah went up, and the LORD gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they struck down ten thousand men of them in Bezek.And the LORD gave it, and its king, into the hand of Israel; and he struck it with the mouth of the sword, and all the living souls within it; he left none remaining in it, but did to its king as he did to the king of Jericho.This day the LORD will shut you up in my hand; and I will strike you, and turn your head aside from you; and I will give the corpses of the camp of the Philistines this day to the birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the earth; that all the earth may perceive that there is a God in Israel.THE THREAD
And the LORD our God gave him before us, and we struck him, and his sons, and all his people.The same Hebrew verb נָתַן (natan, give, set, place) lies beneath “delivered” in both verses. Deuteronomy 2:33 pairs that handover with “we smote him,” making the sequence of divine giving followed by human violence visible.
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