Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Numbers 32:20 - 32:42

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Numbers 32:20 - 32:42


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The Petition Granted with the Proposed Condition

v. 20. And Moses said unto them, If ye will do this thing, if ye will go armed before the Lord to war,


v. 21. and will go all of you armed over Jordan before the Lord, until He hath driven out His enemies from before Him,
the matter was to be performed in good faith, in solemn earnestness, as before the face of Jehovah, with His eyes resting upon them,

v. 22. and the land be subdued before the Lord, then, afterward, ye shall return and be guiltless before the Lord and before Israel,
since they would then have fulfilled all the obligations resting upon them as members of the Lord's people; and this land shall be your possession before the Lord.

v. 23. But if ye will not do so,
refusing to fulfill the duty which lay before them so plainly, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out, its punishment would surely strike them.

v. 24. Build you cities for your little ones and folds for your sheep; and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth,
they should keep the promise which they had made of their own free will.

v. 25. And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben spake unto Moses, saying, Thy servants will do as my lord commandeth.

v. 26. Our little ones, our wives, our flocks, and all our cattle shall be there in the cities of Gilead;


v. 27. but thy servants will pass over, every man armed for war, before the Lord to battle, as my lord saith.

v. 28. So concerning them Moses commanded Eleazar, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the chief fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel,
since Moses knew that he himself would not live to see the accomplishment of the agreement;

v. 29. and Moses said unto them, If the children of Gad and the children of Reuben will pass with you over Jordan, every man armed to battle, before the Lord,
who still accompanied the host, and the land shall be subdued before you, then ye shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession, which they were now holding only in a temporary and tentative manner, subject to the fulfillment of their promise;

v. 30. but it they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.
The text seems to imply that the two tribes would lose their identity in that case, their status as two separate and distinct tribes, their members being distributed among the other tribes of Israel.

v. 31. And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben answered, saying, As the Lord hath said unto thy servants, so will we do,
thus declaring their willingness to accept the terms as stated.

v. 32. We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance on this side of Jordan may be ours,
for the possession of it was actually dependent upon their fulfilling the condition.

v. 33. And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben and unto half the tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph,
this tribe thus being recognized as having equal claims with the other two, the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, the land, with the cities thereof in the coasts (boundaries), even the cities of the country round about, the entire country with its cities and the cultivated land in the neighborhood of the cities.

v. 34. And. the children of Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer,


v. 35. and Atroth, Shophan, and Jaazer, and Jogbehah,


v. 36. and Beth-nimrah, and Beth-haran, fenced cities; and folds,
walled corals, for sheep.

v. 37. And the children of Reuben built Heshbon,
the city which had been the capital of Sihon, and Elealeh, and Kirjathaim,

v. 38. and Nebo, and Baal-meon, (their names being changed,) and Shibmah; and gave other names unto the cities which they builded.
Some of these cities have been located more or less exactly, while the location of others is altogether a matter of conjecture; but they were all in the territory east of the Jordan. y. 39. And the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, that is, they had gone there, this fact causing them to be included in this grant, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it.

v. 40. And Moses gave Gilead unto Machir, the son of Manasseh; and he dwelt therein.

v. 41. And Jair, the son of Manasseh, went,
had gone, and took the small towns thereof, and called them Havoth-jair.

v. 42. And Nobah went, had gone, and took Kenath and the villages thereof, and called it Nobah, after his own name.
Cf Deu_3:4-14; 1Ch_2:22-23, where we learn that Jair was the leader in these expeditions, that he himself took twenty-three cities, and that the total number of towns with their suburbs taken in the campaign was sixty. For the people of God the motto holds true: A common warfare and peril, a common triumph and inheritance.