Deuteronomy 3:4

Summary

This verse describes the capture of sixty cities belonging to Og, king of Bashan, emphasizing through a double negative construction that not a single town escaped capture. It closes by identifying the conquered territory as "the region of Argob," part of "the kingdom of Og in Bashan."

Key words

• nilKod ("we captured", H3920) — qal narrative form, first-person plural, continuing the sequential storyline begun with the vav-consecutive.
• 'aRay ("his cities", H5892B) — construct plural with pronominal suffix -o ("his"), linking the cities directly to Og as possessor.
• lo' ("not", H3808) — appears twice in the verse (lines 11 and 15), forming a double-negative clause that functions as an emphatic statement of totality.
• qir'Yah ("a town", H7151) — singular noun, the grammatical subject of the negated clause, standing for "any town" in this context.
• mamLekhet ("kingdom of", H4467) — feminine singular construct, placing "Og" in a possessive relationship as ruler of the named kingdom.

What the text says

The verse continues the narrative sequence from the previous verse using the vav-consecutive verb nilKod ("we captured," H3920), followed by the direct object marker 'et (H0853) and the construct phrase kol-'aRay ("all of his cities," H3605 + H5892B), with the pronominal suffix -o pointing back to Og. The temporal phrase ba-'Et ha-Hiv' ("at that time") anchors the action.

The central rhetorical feature is the negation structure in lines 10–16: lo' hayeTah qirYah 'asher lo' laKachnu meItam — literally "there was not a town which we did not take from them." This doubled negative (lo'... lo') is a Hebrew idiom expressing absolute totality — every town without exception was taken. The verb haYetah (H1961, qal perfect) marks this as a completed, past state.

The final clause lists the conquered territory using three stacked construct chains: kol-Chevel 'arGob ("all the region of Argob," H2256M + H0709G), mamLekhet 'Og ("the kingdom of Og," H4467 + H5747), and ba-baShan ("in Bashan," H1316). Each construct noun (chevel, mamlekhet) sets up a possessive relationship that culminates in identifying the geographic and political scope of the sixty captured cities.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew reads mamLekhet 'Og ("kingdom of Og," H4467 construct), which the Vulgate renders equivalently as "regni Og" ("of the kingdom of Og"). The LXX instead reads "βασιλέως Ὢγ" ("of king Og"), shifting from "kingdom of" to "king," a rendering that changes the construct noun's referent from the political entity to the ruler's title. The BSB translation restructures the verse by placing "sixty" earlier, attaching it directly to "cities" in the first sentence, whereas the Hebrew places the number shiShim ("sixty," H8346) only after the double-negative clause, as a summary count following the assertion of totality.