Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 32:1 - 32:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 32:1 - 32:1


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The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large flocks and herds, petitioned Moses, Eleazar, and the princes of the congregation, to give them the conquered land of Gilead for a possession, as a land that was peculiarly adapted for flocks, and not to make them pass over the Jordan. מְאֹד עָצוּם, “very strong,” is an apposition introduced at the close of the sentence to give emphasis to the רַב. The land which they wished for, they called the “land of Jaëzer (see Num 21:32), and the land of Gilead.” They put Jaëzer first, probably because this district was especially rich in excellent pasture land. Gilead was the land to the south and north of the Jabbok (see at Deu 3:10), the modern provinces of Belka in the south between the Jabbok and the Arnon, and Jebel Ajlun to the north of the Jabbok, as far as the Mandhur. Ancient Gilead still shows numerous traces of great fertility even in its present desolation, covered over as it is with hundreds of ruins of old towns and hamlets. Belka is mountainous towards the north, but in the south as far as the Arnon it is for the most part table-land; and in the mountains, as Buckingham says, “we find on every hand a pleasant shade from fine oaks and wild pistachio-trees, whilst the whole landscape has more of a European character. The pasturage in Belka is much better than it is anywhere else throughout the whole of southern Syria, so that the Bedouins say, 'You can find no country like Belka.' The oxen and sheep of this district are considered the very best” (see v. Raumer, Pal. p. 82). The mountains of Gilead on both sides of the Jabbok are covered for the most part with glorious forests of oak. “Jebel Ajlun,” says Robinson (Pal. App. 162), “presents the most charming rural scenery that I have seen in Syria. A continued forest of noble trees, chiefly the evergreen oak (Sindiân), covers a large part of it, while the ground beneath is covered with luxuriant grass, which we found a foot or more in height, and decked with a rich variety of flowers” (see v. Raumer, ut sup.). This also applies to the ancient Basan, which included the modern plains of Jaulan and Hauran, that were also covered over with ruins of former towns and hamlets. The plain of Hauran, though perfectly treeless, is for all that very fertile, rich in corn, and covered in some places with such luxuriant grass that horses have great difficulty in making their way through it; for which reason it is a favourite resort of the Bedouins (Burckhardt, p. 393). “The whole of Hauran,” says Ritter (Erdkunde, xv. pp. 988, 989), “stretches out as a splendid, boundless plain, between Hermon on the west, Jebel Hauran on the east, and Jebel Ajlun to the south; but there is not a single river in which there is water throughout the whole of the summer. It is covered, however, with a large number of villages, every one of which has its cisterns, its ponds, or its birket; and these are filled in the rainy season, and by the winter torrents from the snowy Jebel Hauran. Wherever the soil, which is everywhere black, deep, dark brown, or ochre-coloured, and remarkably fertile, is properly cultivated, and you find illimitable corn-fields, and chiefly golden fields of wheat, which furnish Syria in all directions with its principal food. By far the larger part of this plain, which was a luxuriant garden in the time of the Romans, is now uncultivated, waste, and without inhabitants, and therefore furnishes the Bedouins of the neighbourhood with the desired paradise for themselves and their flocks.” On its western slope Jebel Hauran is covered with splendid forests of oak, and rich in meadow land for flocks (Burckhardt, pp. 152, 169, 170, 173, 358; Wetstein, Reiseber. pp. 39ff. and 88). On the nature of the soil of Hauran, see at Deu 3:4. The plain of Jaulan appears in the distance like the continuation of Hauran (Robinson, App. 162); it has much bush-land in it, but the climate is not so healthy as in Hauran (Seetzen, i. pp. 353, 130, 131). “In general, Hauran, Jaulan, el Botthin, el Belka, and Ejlun, are the paradise of nomads, and in all their wanderings eastwards they find no pasture like it” (Seetzen, i. p. 364). מָקֹום, a locality, or district. מִקְנֶה מְאֹום = מִקְנֶה אֶרֶץ (Num 32:4), a district adapted for grazing.