Numbers 32

Alastair Roberts

00:00

Numbers 32

May 23, 2022

Alastair Roberts

The Transjordanian tribes.

My reflections are searchable by Bible chapter here: https://audio.alastairadversaria.com/explore/.

If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or buying books for my research on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/36WVSWCK4X33O?ref_=wl_share).

You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035?mt=2.

Transcript

Numbers chapter 32. And they said, And the Lord's anger was kindled on that day. And he swore, saying, And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel.

And he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone. And, behold, you have risen in your father's place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel. For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all his people.

Then they came near to him and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock and cities for our little ones. But we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. And our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east. So Moses said to them, If you will do this, if you will take up arms to go before the Lord for the war, and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before the Lord, until he has driven out his enemies from before him, and the land is subdued before the Lord, then after that you shall return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the Lord.

But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. Build cities for your little ones and foals for your sheep, and do what you have promised. And the people of Gad and the people of Reuben said to Moses, Your servants will do as my Lord commands.

Our little ones, our wives, our livestock, and all our cattle shall remain there in the cities of Gilead. But your servants will pass over every man who is armed for war before the Lord to battle, as my Lord orders. So Moses gave command concerning them to Eliezer the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the people of Israel.

And Moses said to them, If the people of Gad and the people of Reuben, every man who is armed to battle before the Lord, will pass with you over the Jordan, and the land shall be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. However, if they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan. And the people of Gad and the people of Reuben answered, What the Lord has said to your servants we will do.

We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us beyond the Jordan. And Moses gave to them, to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihan, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, the land and its cities with their territories, the cities of the land throughout the country. And the people of Gad built Dibon, Atorath, Eroah, Atrosh, Shophan, Jezer, Jobihah, Bethnimrah, and Beth-ha-ran, fortified cities and folds for sheep.

And the people of Reuben built Heshbon, Eliela, Kiriathim, Nebo, and Baal-me-om, their names were changed, and Sidmar, and they gave other names to the cities that they built. And the sons of Makir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and captured it, and dispossessed the Amorites who were in it. And Moses gave Gilead to Makir the son of Manasseh, and he settled in it.

And Jeir the son of Manasseh went and captured their villages, and called them Havoth-Jeir. And Nobah went and captured Kenath and its villages, and called it Nobah after his own name. In Numbers chapter 32, an event occurs that makes us at first wonder whether Israel is going to fall at the final hurdle.

Just as they are about to enter into the land, it seems like Reuben and Gad are drawing back. When Reuben and Gad tell Moses and Eliezer that they plan to stay back in the land of the Transjordan, Moses is clearly angry and also distressed. It seems like the events of chapters 13 and 14 are playing out all over again.

The people had once been discouraged from entering into the Promised Land by the bad report of the spies. And now as Gad and Reuben draw back at the last moment, they might be discouraged once more. Following Israel's victories against the Amorites and the Midianites in the land of the Transjordan, they enjoyed possessions outside of the Promised Land proper.

And the land of these possessions looked very promising to Reuben and Gad, who needed extensive grazing land for their flocks. Moses is furious, and although the people would not have forgotten, he recounts the entire history of what had happened 38 years ago. Because of the bad reports of the spies and the people's refusal to enter into the Promised Land, the Lord was angry with his people, and all except Caleb and Joshua of that generation had died out as a result.

Moses, however, is misreading the intentions of Gad and Reuben. Gad and Reuben relieve Moses' fears and set his mind at rest by communicating their true intent. They come near to him to communicate to him.

Rabbi David Foreman sees in the wording here an expression of Reuben and Gad's willingness to cross the gap. They are not going to stand over against Moses and argue with him. They will go to whatever extent is necessary to allay his concerns.

Having settled their wives and families within their territory, they offer to go ahead of the rest of the tribes to lead them into the Promised Land. Far from avoiding the battle for the land, they commit themselves to being found in the thickest part of it. Moses accepts their request, but requires of them that they cross over before the people and do not return until the land has been conquered.

If they fail to do this, the Lord will hold them accountable. Moses gathers the people together and reports on the decision that has been made. To the terms by which Gad and Reuben had bound themselves, Moses adds the condition that if they fail to do what they have committed themselves to do, they will forfeit their title to the Transjordanian land and be given land alongside the other tribes.

There is a surprising addition in verse 33. Alongside Reuben and Gad, the half-tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, will inherit land to the east of the Jordan. The tribe of Manasseh then will straddle the Jordan River, one half in the Promised Land proper and the other half in the Transjordan.

In such a manner, the tribe of Manasseh would be a bridged tribe, connecting the two halves of the land together. The Jordan River was a geographical seam on which the nation was always in danger of being torn apart. We see this especially in the story of Joshua chapter 22, where the distrust between the people on the different sides of the Jordan nearly led to all-out war.

In that chapter, Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an altar on their side of the Jordan, which was intended, they argued, to be a memorial, not to be a rival altar or an alternative site of worship. The two and a half tribes explain their reasoning in verses 24-29 of that chapter. Therefore we said, let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in His presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and peace offerings, so your children will not say to our children in time to come, you have no portion in the Lord.

And we thought, if this should be said to us or to our descendants in time to come, we should say, behold, the copy of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you, far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering or sacrifice, other than the altar of the Lord our God that stands before His tabernacle. This expression of the fears of the two and a half tribes gives a window into the tensions and anxieties that existed on that fault line. In Deuteronomy chapter 3, Moses describes the allocation of the land to these two and a half tribes in verses 12 to 20 of that chapter.

When we took possession of this land at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory beginning at Oroa, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities, the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region of Argab, I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh. All that portion of Bashan is called the land of Rephaim. Jair the Manassite took all the region of Argab, that is, Bashan, as far as the border of the Gesherites and the Maakithites and called the villages after his own name, Habath-Jair, as it is to this day.

To Macchae I gave Gilead, and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a border, as far over as the river Jaboch, the border of the Ammonites, the Araba also, with the Jordan as the border from Kinnerath, as far as the sea of the Araba, the salt sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east. And I commanded you at that time, saying, The Lord your God has given you this land to possess. All your men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel.

Only your wives, your little ones, and your livestock, I know that you have much livestock, shall remain in the cities that I have given you, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as to you, and they also occupy the land that the Lord your God gives them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to his possession which I have given you. Moses himself would die in the Transjordan, and the fact that Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh took their possessions there meant that Moses, even though he would die outside the promised land, would not die outside the possessions of his people.

He died in the land of Reuben. Gordon Wenham writes of the land of Gilead. Gilead designates a variety of areas in the Old Testament.

Its primary meaning, as here, is the hilly district south of the Jaboch, but it may also refer to the area north of the Jaboch as well, and sometimes it designates the whole of the Transjordanian territory held by Israel, for instance in Joshua chapter 22 verse 9 and 13, etc. These high lands, around 2,500 feet overlooking the Jordan valley, enjoy a good rainfall and are therefore very fertile. Gilead was an important site in the history of Israel.

It was to Gilead that Jacob had been pursued by Laban. At Gilead they had entered into a covenant, and Jacob, not knowing that his wife Rachel had taken his father-in-law's household gods, declared a death sentence on the person in whose possession they were found. Later, that death sentence perhaps coming back to haunt him, Ishmaelites had come from Gilead on camels and had brought his son Joseph down into Egypt.

It might be illuminating to read the end of this chapter against the background of that history. Fulman observes an unusual detail. Although Jeir is described as a Manassite here, in 1 Chronicles chapter 2 verses 21 and 22 he is described as a descendant of Judah.

Afterward, Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead, whom he married when he was 60 years old, and she bore him Segub, and Segub fathered Jeir, who had 23 cities in the land of Gilead. Surprisingly then, Jeir is truly a descendant of Judah, although he has a Manassite grandmother. That he is considered a Manassite is surprising, considering that tribal ancestry is usually reckoned on the father's side.

In Genesis chapter 37, when the camels had come down from Gilead, Judah had led the brothers against Joseph. Here, however, a man of Judah is numbered among the sons of Joseph, and leads them in their conquest of the land. Together they take Gilead, this place of painful memory, the place of the dreadful curse against the matriarch Rachel.

There is something of the redemption of the history here. In Genesis chapter 37, Jacob was devastated when he discovered that his son Joseph was likely torn. In Numbers chapter 32, there is a sort of tearing of Joseph, part of Manasseh is on one side of the Jordan, and part of Manasseh is on the other side of the Jordan.

However, this tearing in two serves to hold the nation more firmly together, so it would not be torn asunder. By entrusting one half of Joseph's firstborn son Manasseh to the firstborn tribe of Leah, Reuben, and Gad the firstborn tribe of Leah's handmaid, Zilpah, and the other half of Manasseh to the tribes that crossed over the Jordan, brothers that had once sold Joseph into slavery, would be bound together by a shared commitment to the tribe named after his firstborn son. A question to consider, how does the character of Hezron, who married the daughter of Maciah the father of Gilead, resonate with the story of some other characters who had descended from Maciah that we read of in the book of Numbers?