The First Victories
Deuteronomy 2:24–3:11
After all the walking-past, God finally said go.
“Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle” (Deut 2:24).
For three nations, the order had been hands off. Now, for Sihon king of Heshbon, the order flipped. This land God was giving to Israel. The waiting was over. The first real conquest was about to begin.
Moses, ever the diplomat, sent messengers to Sihon first, offering to pass through peacefully. Buy food, buy water, stay on the road, cause no trouble. A reasonable request. But Sihon refused. The text adds a startling detail: “the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands” (Deut 2:30).
That line should make us pause. God hardened Sihon, the way he’d hardened Pharaoh, so that Sihon’s refusal would lead to his defeat. We don’t get a tidy explanation for how divine sovereignty and human responsibility fit together here. Sihon was already an enemy, already opposed to Israel, already a king of the Amorites whose iniquity (Genesis told us) had reached its full measure. God’s hardening worked through Sihon’s own hostility, not against it.
Israel defeated Sihon completely. Every town. The whole territory from the Arnon to the Jabbok. It was the first land they actually took, the first time they fought and won and possessed.
Then came Og.
Og, king of Bashan, was the stuff of legend. The text notes that his bed was made of iron, over thirteen feet long and six feet wide (Deut 3:11). He was one of the last of the Rephaites, the giant peoples. If anyone in that generation still carried the fear that froze their parents at Kadesh, the giants their parents had dreaded, Og was the embodiment of it.
And God said the same thing he always says to fear: “Do not be afraid of him, for I have delivered him into your hands, along with his whole army and his land. Do you to him what you did to Sihon” (Deut 3:2).
Do not be afraid. The exact words the previous generation couldn’t believe. But this generation did. They went up against the giant king with the iron bed, and they won. Sixty fortified cities fell. The whole region of Bashan came into Israel’s hands.
Here’s what’s worth noticing. Forty years earlier, ten spies looked at the giants and said, “We can’t.” Now Israel faced an actual giant king, and they did. Same enemy type. Different outcome. The difference wasn’t the size of the giants. It was whether the people believed God when he said do not be afraid.
The giants didn’t shrink. The people grew. Faith doesn’t make the obstacle smaller; it makes you willing to face it because you trust who’s fighting with you.
These two victories, Sihon and Og, became Israel’s reference points for generations. The psalms sing about them. “To him who struck down great kings... Sihon king of the Amorites... and Og king of Bashan... His love endures forever” (Ps 136:17-20). They became shorthand for what God can do when his people finally stop being afraid.
The land east of the Jordan, the territory Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh would settle, was won in these battles. The first inheritance. The proof that the promise was real and the conquest was possible.
The giants their parents feared, this generation defeated.
The same God was with both.
Only one generation believed him.
Believe him.
The giants didn’t shrink. The people grew. Faith doesn’t make the obstacle smaller; it makes you willing to face it because you trust who’s fighting with you.