1And the Reubenites and the Gadites had much livestock, very numerous, and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and, look, the place was a place for livestock. 2And the Gadites and the Reubenites came to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chieftains of the community, saying, 3“Ataroth and Dibon and Jazer and Nimrah and Heshbon and Elealeh and Sebam and Nebo and Beon, 4the land that the LORD struck down before the community of Israel, is livestock land, and your servants have livestock.” 5And they said, “If we have found favor in your eyes, let this land be given to your servants as a holding. Do not make us cross the Jordan.” 6And Moses said to the Gadites and to the Reubenites, “Shall your brothers come to battle and you sit here? 7And why would you hinder the heart of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the LORD has given to them? 8Thus your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-Barnea to see the land. 9And they went up as far as Wadi Eshcol and saw the land, and they hindered the heart of the Israelites from coming into the land that the LORD had given them. 10And the LORD’s wrath flared on that day and He swore, saying, 11‘These men who have come up from Egypt, from twenty years old and up, shall not see the soil that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, for they have not fulfilled My behest, 12save Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they fulfilled My behest.’ 13And the LORD’s wrath flared against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the eyes of the LORD came to an end. 14And, look, you have arisen in your fathers’ stead, a breed of offending men, to add still more of the LORD’s flaring wrath against Israel. 15For you would turn back from Him, so that He would continue to leave them in the wilderness, and you would destroy all this people.” 16And they approached him and said, “Sheep enclosures we shall build here for our livestock, and towns for our little ones. 17And as for us, we shall head out swiftly in the vanguard before the Israelites until we bring them to their place, and our little ones will dwell in the fortified towns because of the inhabitants of the land. 18We will not return to our homes until the Israelites take possession every man of his estate. 19For we will not take possession with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, for our estate has come to us on the side of the Jordan to the east.” 20And Moses said to them, “If you will do this thing, if you go out in the vanguard to battle before the LORD, 21and every member of the vanguard among you crosses the Jordan before the LORD until He dispossesses His enemies before Him, 22and the land is conquered before the LORD, then you may return and you will be clear of the LORD and of Israel, and this land will be a holding for you before the LORD. 23And should you not do thus, look, you will have offended to the LORD, and know your offense, which will find you. 24Build your towns for your little ones and enclosures for your sheep, and the utterance of your mouth you shall do.” 25And the Gadites and the Reubenites said to Moses, saying, “Your servants will do as my lord charges. 26Our little ones, our wives, our livestock, and all our beasts will be there in the towns of Gilead. 27And your servants will cross over, all the vanguard of the army, before the LORD to the battle, as my lord speaks.” 28And Moses charged them, with Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the fathers of the Israelite tribes. 29And Moses said to them, “If the Gadites and the Reubenites cross the Jordan with you, all the vanguard to the battle before the LORD, and the land is conquered before you, you shall give them the land of Gilead as a holding. 30But if they do not cross over with you as a vanguard, they shall find holdings in your midst in the land of Canaan.” 31And the Gadites and the Reubenites answered, saying, “That which the LORD has spoken to your servants, so will we do. 32We will cross over in the vanguard before the LORD to the land of Canaan, while ours will be our secure holding on the other side of the Jordan.” 33And Moses gave to the Gadites and to the Reubenites and to the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorite, and the kingdom of Og, king of the Bashan, the land with its towns within the borders of the towns of the land all around. 34And the Gadites built Dibon and Ataroth and Aroer, 35and Atroth-Shophan and Jazer and Jogbehah, 36and Beth-Nimrah and Beth-Haran—fortified towns and sheep enclosures. 37And the Reubenites built Heshbon and Elealeh and Kiriathaim, 38and Nebo and Baal-Meon, changed in name, and Sibmah. And they called by names, the names of the towns they had built. 39And the sons of Machir son of Manasseh went to the Gilead and captured it and dispossessed the Amorite who was in it. 40And Moses gave the Gilead to Machir son of Manasseh, and he settled in it. 41And Jair son of Manasseh went and captured their hamlets and called them Jair’s Hamlets. 42And Nobah went and captured Kenath and its surrounding villages and he called it Nobah, in his name.
CHAPTER 32 NOTES
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1. the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead. The flexible Hebrew term ʾerets, “land,” often means “region,” as it does here, rather than “country.” The area of settlement where these animal-breeding Israelites seek to stay is east of the northern half of the Dead Sea and east of the Jordan River that flows down into it, extending all the way up to the Sea of Galilee.
3. Ataroth and Dibon and Jazer. Perhaps out of a certain nervousness at presenting Moses with a request that might elicit his displeasure (this proves to be the case), the Reubenites and Gadites begin their speech with a long catalogue of names of recently conquered places, not at first explaining what they have on their mind.
5. And they said. As is generally the case, the repetition of the formula for introducing speech with no intervening response from the other party is an indication of temporary lack of response because of the nature of what has been said. The Reubenites and Gadites present a catalogue of towns, then say that this is good land for livestock and that they have livestock. This is a leading statement, and Moses no doubt sees where their remarks are leading. He listens in stony silence: they hesitate, then resume their speech, now making the explicit request to settle east of the Jordan.
6. Shall your brothers come to battle and you sit here? At least according to this canonical account, the fighting in the region east of the Jordan (against the Amorites, the Moabites, and the Midianites) has already been successfully concluded, whereas the conquest of Canaan proper remains to be undertaken.
11. the soil. Here Moses chooses to have God say ʾadamah, which can mean “land” or “country” but which has a strong connotation of “arable land” or “soil,” underlining the prospective fertility of the territory promised to Israel. The more usual term in these texts of promise is ʾerets, “land.”
they have not fulfilled My behest. The literal meaning of this phrase is “they have not filled after me,” that is, implicitly followed Me.
15. to leave them in the wilderness. The Hebrew says, a little confusingly, “to leave him,” the evident antecedent being the collective noun “people.”
17. because of. Or “in the face of,” “against.”
18. We will not return to our homes until the Israelites take possession. The existence of a substantial Israelite settlement east of the Jordan, whether one attributes it to this early period or to later expansionist drives, clearly posed a problem of national unity. The exemplary readiness of the Reubenites and Gadites to head out in the vanguard to fight for their cis-Jordanian brothers is intended as a rousing image of national solidarity.
19. for our estate has come to us. As Rashi notes, the idiom means “to come into legal possession.”
22. you will be clear of the LORD and of Israel. The idiom refers to being clear of the obligations of a vow or pledge—in this case, because they will have been fulfilled.
23. know your offense, which will find you. Although this agreement with the trans-Jordanian tribes is strictly between them and Moses (in this case Moses does not turn to God for guidance), the implicit guarantor of the pledge is God. Violating the pledge would be an offense “to the LORD,” and the consequences of the offense would be felt by the violators of the pledge.
24. the utterance of your mouth. More literally, “what goes out from your mouth”—an idiom used for oaths, which cannot be retracted once they are pronounced.
28. the heads of the fathers of the Israelite tribes. “Fathers” apparently enters this string of phrases as a reference to the social-organizational unit “father’s house,” or patriarchal house.
32. our secure holding. See the comment on 27:7 for an explanation of this phrase.
33. the half-tribe of Manasseh. Until this point, there was no mention of Manasseh as part of the trans-Jordanian group.
34. built. The implication is not that they built these towns from the ground up but that they rebuilt them after conquest and, one assumes, partial destruction. This is a common biblical use of this verb.
38. changed in name. Some of these towns, as Rashi observed, bore names associated with pagan gods (notably, the just mentioned Baal-Meon), so the Israelites were impelled to rename them.
39. the sons of Machir. Although the obvious meaning is Machirites, in this instance the translation literally reproduces the Hebrew “sons of” because of the identification of Machir, twice, in what immediately follows as literally “son of Manasseh.”