3:12-13a - Of the land that we took over at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer by the Arnon Gorge, including half the hill country of Gilead, together with its towns. The rest of Gilead and also all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh.
3:15-17 - And I gave Gilead to Makir. But to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory extending from Gilead down to the Arnon Gorge (the middle of the gorge being the border) and out to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. Its western border was the Jordan in the Arabah, from Kinnereth to the
Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea), below the slopes of Pisgah.
Almost immediately after the land in Transjordan was conquered, the tribes of Manasseh, Gad and Reuben had approached and asked Moses if they could have those land as their share of the allotment. Moses agreed, provided they would cross the Jordan with the rest of the tribes to help them secure their allotments of the Promised Land. Here Moses recalls that recent allocation of the land among the two and a half tribes. This recollection is, however, related in broad strokes and gives no hint of the original circumstances, so filled with tension and misgivings as it was recorded in Num 31. The tenor of this recollection is that the land is not Israel's, a fact further emphasized by the narrator's remark on Havvoth Jair being set at the center of the chiastic structure that frames this paragraph (Click here to view the structure again), which we will examine next.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, rev., 2021