Joshua 12:4

the coast of Og See Numbers 21:33; Numbers 21:35; Deuteronomy 3:4; Deuteronomy 3:10.

at Ashtaroth The residence of Og. It is now called Tel Ashterah, or Asherah. The Tel (hill) rises to a height of between fifty and a hundred feet from the level of the plain, in which ruins lie scattered. At the foot of the hill are ancient foundations of walls and copious springs.

at Edrei = Strength. Here, "in the Thermopylæ of his kingdom," Og was slain. See Numbers 21:33-35; Deuteronomy 3:1-3. On a rocky promontory, 1½ miles wide, and 2½ miles long, south-west of the basaltic district of Argob, rose the city, "without water, without access save over rocks, and through defiles almost impracticable. Strength and security seem to have been the great objects kept in view, and to these all other advantages were sacrificed." By the Greeks it was called Adraa; by the Crusaders Adratum, also Civitas Bernardi de Stampis, now Edr'a. In a.d. 1142 the Crusaders under Baldwin III. made a sudden attack upon it, but without success. The historian of the Crusades, in his account of this incident, refers to the immense subterranean cisterns that abound in the neighbourhood of the city, among the rocks, and the modern traveller is astonished at the extent and number of reservoirs, not only here but in all the other towns and villages in the Lejah, and in Jebel Haurân. Porter's Handbook, 11. 533, 534.