How Og King of Bashan Fell Beneath His Own Mountain

"And they struck him and his sons and all his people" (Numbers 21:35). They said concerning Og that he devised a plan and said: "How large is the camp of Israel? Three parsangs. I will go and uproot a mountain three parsangs wide and hurl it upon them." He went and uprooted the mountain, and it was three parsangs across, and he carried it upon his head and came. The Holy One, blessed be He, sent a raven — and some say an ant — and it bored through it, and it descended onto his neck. When he sought to remove it, his teeth stretched out this way and that way, and he was not able to remove it. So too you find with the teeth of the wicked in the time to come, as it is said: "You have broken the teeth of the wicked" (Psalms 3:8) — do not read it "shibbarta" (you have broken) but "shirbavta" (you have stretched out). And when Moses our teacher saw that he was standing, what did he do? Moses was ten cubits tall, as it is said: "And he spread the tent over the Tabernacle" (Exodus 40:19), and the Tabernacle was ten cubits. He took an axe ten cubits long and leaped ten cubits and struck his ankle and killed him. From this they say: That mountain which Og was bringing to hurl upon Israel — Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, pronounced the Ineffable Name and held it in the air, so that it would not fall upon Israel. Then they said: May the hands that throw thus be cut off, and may the mouth that holds it up thus be blessed.