Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 32-33.

There are two ways that one can read the request from the Reubenites and the Gadites regarding settling in Gilead, or perhaps three.  Perhaps, Moses interpreted their request correctly, they were asking to not need to take part in the invasion of the Promised Land.  In that case, Moses was right to be angry with them.  Or, perhaps, they only meant to ask for what they got.  They were merely asking for the territory of Gilead to be theirs while they sent their fighters to aid the rest of the Israelites in taking the Promised Land.  The final possibility is that they had not thought about what it would mean relative to fighting with the rest of Israel across the Jordan if their request was granted.

I think the last is most likely what was going on here.  Moses overreacted to their request, because they did not intend to not assist the rest of Israel.  On the other hand, if Moses had granted their request without first getting their agreement to it being conditional on aiding the rest of Israel, there would have been significant sentiment among those tribes which settled east of the Jordan River to not fight with the rest of Israel on the other side.  In any case, this passage shows us the importance of making expectations clear.  The Reubenites and Gadites had not clearly laid out their expectations and, as a result, Moses thought they were trying to back out of entering the Promised Land.  We also see how a willingness to clarify your position can end a dispute.

There is one other thing I want to note.  The land which these tribes chose as their inheritance was pretty much the land which Lot chose when his herders and Abraham’s herders were in conflict and Abraham gave him first choice which way to go.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.