Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
Who survived the flood?
The Torah explains who was left in the world after the מַבּוּל (mabul, flood):
וַיִשָּׁאֶר אַךְ נֹחַ וַאֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ בַּתֵּבָה
There remained just Noah and those with him on the teivah (ark).
The word אַךְ (akh, just) has a lot of meanings, but normally is used to exclude something from what is being said. But what is it excluding here? Why couldn’t the pasuk have said that “Noah and those with him on the teivah” remained, without using the word “akh” at all?
A midrash notices that this is similar to another pasuk from the Torah:
(יא) כִּ֣י רַק־ע֞וֹג מֶ֣לֶךְ הַבָּשָׁ֗ן נִשְׁאַר֮ מִיֶּ֣תֶר הָרְפָאִים֒
For only Og, king of the Bashan, remained from the giants
There are two similarities:
(1) The word רק (rak, only) has a similar meaning to “akh.”
(2) Og is also described as “remaining,” just like Noah and his family.
So the midrash puts this together and suggests that “akh” in our pasuk means “there is an exception.” And who was the exception? You guessed it!
כִּי יָשַׁב לוֹ עַל עֵץ אֶחָד תַּחַת סֻלָּמוֹ שֶׁל תֵּבָה וְנִשְׁבַּע לְנֹחַ וּלְבָנָיו שֶׁיִּהְיֶה לָהֶם עֶבֶד עוֹלָם. מָה עָשָׂה נֹחַ? נָקַב חוֹר אֶחָד בַּתֵּבָה וְהָיָה מוֹשִׁיט לוֹ מְזוֹנוֹ בְּכָל יוֹם וָיוֹם, וְנִשְׁאַר גַּם הוּא.
(Og) sat on a tree under the ladder of the teivah and swore to Noah and his children that he’d be their servant forever (if they would save him from the mabul).
What did Noah do? He drilled a hole in the teivah and would pass food through it every day. This way Og survived also.
Even though the Torah doesn’t mention Og until the end of Moshe’s life, in Devarim, this midrash suggests that Og was part of the story from the first years of Bereishit! Other midrashim describe Og popping up in other early stories (like in Bereishit 14:13).
- If you read the Torah, you may not get the sense that Og was such an important character. Why do you think midrashim keep looking for him in the story?
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