This district has also received the name of Bashan, from the character of its soil for בּשׁן signifies a soft and level soil. The Targumists have rendered it correctly טרכונא ( Trachona), from τραθών, a rough, uneven, stony district, so called from the basaltic hills of Hauran just as the plain to the east of Jebel Hauran, which resembles Hauran itself, is sometimes called Tellul, from its tells or hills ( Burckhardt, Syr. The name “ region of Argob,” which is given to the country of Bashan here, and in Deu 3:4, Deu 3:13, Deu 3:14, and also in 1Ki 4:13, is probably derived from רגוב, stone-heaps, related to רגב, a clump or clod of earth ( Job 21:33 Job 38:38).
חבל, the chain for measuring, then the land or country measured with the chain. The whole region of Argob included the sixty towns which formed the kingdom of Og in Bashan, i.e., all the towns of the land of Bashan, viz., (according to Deu 3:5) all the fortified towns, besides the unfortified and open country towns of Bashan. They smote him at Edrei, the modern Draà, without leaving him even a remnant and took all his towns, i.e., as is here more fully stated in Deu 3:4., “sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.” These three definitions refer to one and the same country. But as the powerful Amoritish king Og still held the northern half of Gilead and all Bashan, they proceeded northwards at once and took the road to Bashan, that they might also defeat this king, whom the Lord had likewise given into their hand, and conquer his country (cf. After the defeat of king Sihon and the conquest of his land, the Israelites were able to advance to the Jordan.
The Help of God in the Conquest of the Kingdom of Og of Bashan. and Lev 26:40., where it was also observed that the extremity of their distress would bring the people to reflection and induce them to return. If the people should return to the Lord their God in their exile, He would turn His favour towards them again, and gather them again out of their dispersion, as had already been proclaimed in Deu 4:29. Nevertheless the rejection of Israel and its dispersion among the heathen were not to be the close. The Israelites would have prevented much mischief, if they had sooner destroyed the Canaanites, as God commanded and enabled them: but better be wise late, and buy wisdom by experience, than never be wise.Tribe of Gad, is not at variance with this for the allusion there is to that portion of the land of the Ammonites which was between the Arnon and the Jabbok, and which had already been taken from the Ammonites by the Amorites under Sihon (cf.
Thus the weak things of the world confound the mighty. He that had thought to have destroyed Israel with his many iron chariots, is himself destroyed with one iron nail. All our connexions with God's enemies must be broken off, if we would have the Lord for our God, and his people for our people. It is probable that Jael really intended kindness to Sisera but by a Divine impulse she was afterwards led to consider him as the determined enemy of the Lord and of his people, and to destroy him. The idol may quickly become a burden, Isa 46:1 what we were sick for, God can make us sick of.
Thus are those disappointed who rest on the creature like a broken reed, it not only breaks under them, but pierces them with many sorrows. 4:17-24 Sisera's chariots had been his pride and his confidence.