Today started with the people of Reuben and the people of Gad wanting to find land for their livestock. They went to Moses and Eleazar and the chiefs of the congregation, and asked if they could keep their livestock in the land of Gilead and take possession of it.
This land was fertile and abundant and would be good for their livestock. This meant though, that they would be settling there and not crossing the Jordan. This area too was a gift of God won by conquest.
Moses was concerned that they should not just get to sit there, while their brothers went to war. If they did not go, it may discourage the rest of the people in wanting to go into the land that the Lord had promised their fathers. Moses’ fear was that the failure of these two tribes to stay with the whole community in conquering Canaan would be the beginning of a general revolt against entering the land. It would be the failure of Kadesh all over again. Moreover, the conquest of Canaan was a commission to all Israel.
The people have already been abandoned once for their actions because they did not listen, and were forced to wander the wilderness for forty years. All of those generations are dead now, and Moses was concerned that if Reuben and Gad did this and stopped following the Lord, then this generation of people would also be abandoned in the wilderness.
The leaders of Reuben and Gad sought to assure Moses that they did not wish to leave their duty in helping to conquer the land. They would join their brothers in battle but wished to leave their families and livestock behind in the territory of their choosing.
They agreed that if Reuben and Gad did this, and crossed the Jordan to conquer that land with their brothers and for their inheritance of it as the Lord had promised; then they would be allowed to return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel. The bargain was struck, but if they didn’t stick with their word, then they would have sinned against the Lord and there would be strong consequences.
Once the arrangement with the people of Reuben and the people of Gad was established, half the tribe of Manasseh joined them. They built cities and settled in the land.
The last part of today’s reading was recounting Israel’s journey. The numerous places (significantly 40 in number) in Israel’s desert experience was listed. Unfortunately, most of the sites were desert encampments, not cities with lasting archaeological records; so they are difficult to locate.
Moses wrote down the starting location of the people of Israel and kept track stage by stage of their journey, by command of the Lord.
Beginning: “The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out boldly in full view of all the Egyptians, who were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them; for the Lord had brought judgement on their gods…”
End: “When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. You shall inherit the land according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit.”
-Numbers 33:3-4, 51-54
So, they finally made it! However, there was a warning. If they didn’t drive out the inhabitants of the land and some remained, then they would “be barbs in their eyes and thorns in their sides.” They would be trouble for the people of Israel in the land where they would live. Then, God would do to the Israelites what he planned to do to those that remained and weren’t driven out.