Og

עוג


A mythical giant, the only other survivor of the Babylonian Flood besides Utnapishtim; he was finally destroyed by Mosheh, or Yehoshu'a, or not at all.

He is mentioned in Numbers 21:33, 32:33 and Deuteronomy 3:1 as a king of Bashan (בשן) celebrated for his great size. Bashan (cf 1 Chronicles 5:23) was the northern part of the region east of the river Yarden (Jordan), with Mount Chermon to its north, the river Yavok (Jabbok) and Mount Gil'ad (Gilead) to its south - the land of the Repha'im in Av-Raham's time, later the land of Gil'ad and Midyan and associated with Ya'akov's treaty with Lavan (Genesis 31). 

Psalm 68:16 gives "the hill of Bashan" as a synonym for Mount Chermon. The Beney Yisra-El under Yehoshu'a (Joshua 12:4) captured it from their king Og, and gave the land, with part of Gil'ad, to the half-tribe of Menasheh. 

Isaiah 2:13, Ezekiel 27:6 and Zechariah 11:2 say that it was famed for its oak trees; Deuteronomy 32:14, Psalm 22:13 and Ezekiel 39:18 for its rich pastures, abundant cattle, and the quality of its sheep and goats; the latter interesting to note, as Bashan occupied precisely the geographical limits of Ya'akov's experiments in genetic engineering with the flocks of his uncle Lavan (Genesis 30-32).

Og (עוג) is considered by most Hebrew scholars to be a form of Oneg (ענג), though I honestl cannot see how they reach this conclusion. Oneg appears in Isaiah 13:22 and 58:13 as "delights" or "a delicate life", and in the Sabbath liturgy as "a joyful celebration". Clearly this bears no logical connection with either the giant who survived the Flood or a king of Bashan. But the Hebrew scholars are determined that Og will be a "Hebrew" word, even though it is self-evidently Bashanian, or in some other form Chaldean, and so they then go for something similar, and come up with Onek (ענק); Onek is convenient, because it is the same root as Anak (ענק), whence the Anakim, the "people great and tall" of Deuteronomy 9:2, the giants who originally inhabited Chevron according to Joshua 11:21 and 14:15, and who may still have been around in Yirme-Yahu's time (Jeremiah 47:5 - but see the footnote in the link that I have chosen precisely because of its footnote), despite the attempts of Yehoshu'a and others to destroy them.

Given that Og was himself a giant, that the word Og in the Chaldean languages meant "long-necked" and was used to mean "giant", that the Anakim were also famously Masai in the length of their necks, and that their territory included the hills of Yehudah, which was the southernmost point of Bashan during its brief existence, a connection between Og and Anak is not implausible. The problem is that there are no other known dialect variations that exchange a Gimmel (ג) for a Kuph (ק), as this would have to do, though tonally it too is logical: a mere softening of the "g" into a "k" in its English equivalent.

Not to be confused with Gog, the leader of the people called Magog (which is really the same as the Scottish Mac, and may even be its originak source; it means "son of"), who Yechezke-El (Ezekiel 38) pictures leading the the eschatological war that will lead to Armageddon.

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