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Joshua 22
The occasion of the erection of this altar is very remarkable, and in the highest degree honorable to all the parties concerned.
It will be remembered that the tribes of Reuben and Gad, with the half tribe of Manasseh, had received their inheritance beyond the Jordan, on the express condition of sending their warriors to assist their brethren in the conquest of Canaan. They very faithfully and honorably performed this engagement. We do not suppose that they were for so many years, seven at least, without seeing their families, or visiting their homes. That would have been an absurd and needless self-denial. They doubtless went home while the camp lay in winter quarters; and they could, moreover, seeing how short the distance between them was, go home on leave, when particular domestic occasions required their presence. Still, they must have been truly glad when Joshua called them before him, and after commending their conduct, and reminding them of their duties, dismissed them, With his blessing, finally to their homes.
They had not been long gone when it was whispered tremblingly among the people at Shiloh that these men had no sooner crossed the river to their own country, than they had set up a great altar on the cliffs overhanging the eastern border of the Jordan, visible from afar. Well; where was the harm? There was, in fact, room for much dangerous suspicion in this act, which however free from evil intention, was not remarkable for discretion under all the circumstances—at least unless a previous explanation had been given. The harm is, that the law, to repress all danger of that plurality of worship which was the bane of all ancient religions, as well as to preserve the unity of the tribes, had decreed that there should be but one altar—that at the tabernacle—for all the people. The act of the returning warriors was therefore open to the suspicion that they meant, if not to adopt another worship, at least to set up another and independent establishment for worship, on their own side the Jordan, which, besides the obvious tendency to idolatry, could not fail in the event to destroy the connection by which he tribes were linked together. The obligation of all the Israelites to resort three times in the year, for worship, to the sole altar of the people, was admirably suited to retain them as one people, by continually keeping before their minds their common origin and common obligations; but if a separate establishment were allotted to exist on the other side the Jordan, there could be no difficulty in divining that they would cease to put themselves to the trouble of visiting the parent establishment in Canaan, and would, in no long time, come to regard themselves as a separate people.
This was precisely the view of the case which struck the minds of the people; and those who heard it in the several places of their abode, seriously and sadly buckled on their arms, and repaired to Shiloh for orders, resolved, if so commanded, to call to a severe account for their disloyalty, the brethren side by side with whom they had lately fought in the battles of Canaan. Their holy jealousy on this occasion for the glory of God and for the honor of the institutions he had given them, is most becoming, and gives us a favorable opinion of the character of this generation. The sequel bears out this impression. The task which lay before them, though clear, was painful: and they resolved in the meekness of wisdom, not to proceed hastily, or without proper inquiry, in a matter of such deep importance. True, the facts seemed scarcely capable of other than one interpretation; but still, it was just possible that they were mistaken; and at all events, they would not have it laid to their charge, that they had condemned their brethren, unheard. They resolved to send a deputation to inquire into the affair, and remonstrate with the transjordanic warriors. Phinehas, the son of the high-priest, and with him ten of the great family chiefs, one from each tribe, were chosen for this important office. They were thus persons of great weight of character and approved discretion, entitled, by their high position, to demand an explanation, and less likely than younger men to have their judgments warped or compromised by the hasty impulses of passion.
The delegates proceeded on their mission, and on their arrival in Gilead stated the grounds of complaint; prefaced by the impressive words which they were fully authorized to use—“Thus saith the whole congregation of the Lord.”
On hearing to what constructions they had laid themselves open, and how the transaction had been viewed, the two and a half tribes were overwhelmed with grief and astonishment; and with becoming warmth, amounting to horror, disclaimed the injurious imputation, and declared the views on which they had really acted. They commenced by invoking God himself to witness the innocency of their intentions. The form in which they did this is the most emphatic that language can express, and such as can scarcely be represented in a translation. There are the three principal names of God in Hebrew—El, Elohim, Jehovah—and all three are used together by them, and repeated twice. “El, Elohim, Jehovah—El, Elohim, Jehovah,”—he knoweth, etc. If translated at all, it might be perhaps thus—“Almighty God, Elohim, Jehovah,” etc.; for the first term involves the idea of might or strength.
The two and a half tribes proceed to declare, that their object was in all respects the very reverse of that imputed to them. Instead of meaning a separation, they had set up their altar as a monument to future ages of the connection between the tribes separated by the river; so that if, at any time to come, their descendants should attempt to cast off the connection and assert their own independence, or if the Israelites should hereafter attempt to disown their union, and declare that the people beyond the river had “no part in the Lord,” this monument might be pointed to in evidence of the fact. Some have thought from this, that the altar set up had an actual resemblance to the altar of burnt-offerings at the tabernacle. That could not be the case, for the altar there was of brass; but, as it is said to have been after the same pattern, there was no doubt a general resemblance to that altar produced in heaped earth, and stones, and of vastly larger proportions. Its general purpose, as explained, was the same as all such erections. Its presence would excite inquiry; this would produce the history of the circumstances in which it originated, and the purpose for which it was established, the knowledge of which would be thus transmitted to future ages, and kept alive in all generations. To this no kind of resemblance is necessary. If the monument in London were entirely without sculptures and inscriptions to denote its object, still that object would not be forgotten, so long as a people lived around its base. The child would not be able to see so remarkable an object, without asking his father what it meant; and the answer which he received he would in a later day give to his own son, when asked the same question. We have a remarkable example of this in the case of the stones taken up out of the bed of the Jordan, and set up at Gilgal—“That this may be a sign among you. And it shall come to pass, that when your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; and these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” Jos_4:6-7. The object, and probably the construction, of this monument set up by the tribes in the present case, was almost precisely similar to that, and still more similar to the heap which Jacob and Laban set up as a memorial of the covenant between them. That heap was in fact in this same land of Gilead, probably not far from the altar now set up, the establishment of which may indeed have been suggested by the older monument. This seems to be indicated also by the name they gave to the altar, and the terms in which they described it. They “called the altar Ed (a witness) for it shall be a witness between us that Jehovah is God.” Compare this with the other case: “Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha; but Jacob called it Galeed”—both names meaning “the heap of witness;” and then the reason, “This heap is a witness between me and thee this day.” Gen_31:47-48. Joshua himself, at a later day, gave his sanction to this kind of memorial. After the people had, at his instance, renewed their covenant with God, he “took a stone, and set it up under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us; it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.” Jos_24:27. This is a fine idea, going into the region of high poetic conception. The stone would become an enduring monument of that which it had heard, when the men who also heard it had descended to the tomb. This invests the stone with a living presence, such as that which the mind insensibly gives to some old rock or tree upon the site of great deeds, of which it stands the sole existing witness. The consciousness of this was present to the mind of the warrior who told his troops “that forty centuries looked down upon their exploits from the pyramids of Egypt.”