Og (Heb. id. 5"!^^ probably a shortened form of 53", i. e. p2", giant, lit. long-necked [but from a statement of Manetho that Hyh (i-k) in the word Hylsos is the Rephaite name for King, it has been inferred that Og (5") is but an attempt to represent the same in Hebrew letters (see Jour. Sac. Lit. .Jan. 1852, p. 363) ; some, but without any probability, would connect the name with the Greek Ogyges (Ewald, Geseh. i, 306 ; ii, 269)] ; Sept. "Qy ; Joseph. "Qyiif. A nt. iv, 5, 3), an Amoritish king of Bashan (Numb, xxi, 33 ; xxxii, 33; Deut. iv, 47; xxxi, 4), reigning over sixty cities, of which the chief were Ashtaroth and Edrei (Josh, xiii, 12), in the time of the entrance into Canaan, B.C. 1618. See Amorite. We find from Scripture that he was, with his children and his people, defeated and exterminated by the Israelites under Moses at Edrei (Numb, xxi, 33 ; Deut. i, 4 ; iii, 3 ; xxix, 7 ; Josh, ii, 10), immediately after the conquest of Sihon, who is represented by Josephus as his friend and ally (Joseph. Ant. iv, 5, 3). His many walled cities were taken (Deut. iii, 4-10), and his kingdom assigned, with its capital Ashtaroth, to the transjordanic tribes, especially the half-tribe of Manasseh (Deut. iii, 1-13; Josh, ix, 10 ; xiii, 12, 30). See Bashan. " In form he was a giant, so that his bedstead was preserved as a memorial of his huge stature (Deut. iii, 11; Josh. xiii, 12.) See Giant. How it got in ' Rabbath of the children of Ammon' we are not told ; perhaps the Am- monites had taken it in some victory over Og. The verse itself has the air of a later edition (Dathe), al- though it is of course possilile that the Hebrews may have heard of so curious a relic as this long before they conquered the city where it was treasured. Rabbath was first sidxlued in the reign of David (2 Sam. xii, 26); but it does not therefore follow that Dent, iii, 11 was not written till that time (Hiivernick, ad loc). Some have supposed that this was one of the common flat beds [see Bed] sometimes used on the housetops of Eastern
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cities, but made of iron instead of palm-branches, which would not have supported the giant's weight. It has been conjectured by some (Michaelis, Vater, and others) that the w^^rds bflS b'ly, eres harzel, mean a 'sar- cophagus of black basalt ' — a rendering of which they, however, hardly admit. The Arabs still regard black basalt as iron, because it is a stone ' ferrei coloris atque duritic«' (Pliny, xxxvi, 11), and 'contains a large per- centage of iron.' See Iron. It is most abundant in the Hauran ; and indeed is probably the cause of the name Argob (the stony) given to a part of Og's king- dom. This receptacle was "9 cubits long and 4 cubits broad. It does not of course follow that Og was \o\ feet high. Jlaimonidcs (J/o?-c Nebochim, ii, 48) sensibly re- marks that a bed (supposing ' a bed' to be intended) is usually one third longer than the sleeper: and Sir J. Chardin, as well as other travellers, have observed the ancient tendency to make mummies and tombs far larger than the natural size of men, in order to leave an im- pression of wonder " (Smith). The giant stature of Og, and the power and bravery of his people, excited a dread which God himself alleviated by his encouragement to Moses before the battle ; and the impression of this vic- tory lingered long in the national memory (Psa. cxxxv, 11 ; cxxxvi, 20). He was one of the last representatives of the giant-race of Rephaim. According to Eastern traditions, he escaped the Deluge by wading beside the ark (Sale, Koran, ch. v, p. 8G). He was supposed to be the largest of the sons of Anak, and a descendant of Ad. He is said to have lived uo less than 3000 years, and to have refused the warnings of .lethro (Shoaib), who was sent as a prophet to him and his people (D'Herbelot, s. V. Falasthin, Anak). Soiuthi wrote a long book about him and his race, chiefly taken from Rabbinic tra- ditions, and called A ug fi Ichaher A ug (ih. s. v. Aug). See, too, the Juurnal Asiatique for 1841, and Chronique de Tabori, trad, dii Persan par Ditheux, i, 48, f. Other legends about Og may be found in Ben-Uzziel on Numb. xxi. 33 ; Midrash Jitlkut, fol. 13 (quoted by Ewald), and in Mohammedan writers : as that one of his bones long served for a bridge over a river ; that he roasted at the sun a fish freshly caught, etc. An apocryphal book of king Og, which probably contained these and other tra- ditions, was condemned by pope Gelasius {Becret. vi, 13 ; Sixt. Senensis, Bibl. Sanct. p. 86). See Rephaim.
Ogden, Benjamin, a pioneer preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in New Jersey in 1764. In youth he served in the Revolutionary war, and had great influence over his fellow-soldiers. He afterwards moved to Kentucky, then a hunting-ground for Indian tribes, to engage in missionary labors, and for many years thereafter he penetrated the valley of the Mississippi in laborious toil, and in spite of many hard- ships gave the Gospel-tidings to the much-neglected Indians. He was greatly comforted and cheered in his work by the kindly assistance rendered him by Thomas Stevenson and liis wife, those saintly pioneer workers in the Southern Methodist field, who organized the first Methodist Church in Kentucky. In 1788 Ogden located on account of poor health. He died in 1834. He was a man of talent, and Avas deeply imbued with the spirit of his vocation as a primitive Methodist preacher. See Stevens, /list, of the M. E. Church, ii, 360 ; Redford, Hist, of Methodism in Kentuchj, ii, 385 ; McFerrin, Hist, of Methodism in Tennessee, i, 36, 40, 44, 45. (J. H. W.)