Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Chapter 32, The Tribes Divide

Jeremy Rosen - Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Chapter 32, The Tribes Divide

- And now we turn to chapter 32. Getting towards the end of the fourth book of Bamidbar, or Numbers. And we are now coming to an interesting challenge to the whole concept of the nation. Now we are experiencing at this moment this huge division, divisions within this small group of people called the Jews. There are the right wing and the left wing politically. You have the religious and the secular, and they each one of those divide into numerous different warring sects and parties. The division and the tension is absolutely horrific. And yet, going back 2000 years, this was exactly what happened at the same time as the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Romans. We have always been a fractious people, and indeed the Torah keeps on saying we are am kishei oref, or a stiff-necked people. And in one sense this has been, if you like, to our detriment, and in another sense, my feeling is that this is part of our strength, because it allows for all these different opinions and points of view to rise to the surface, and to somehow be engaged with. And so this division, which is disturbing at this moment, I feel could be something that we can turn to our better use. And what we are going to study today is the first example of a serious split. We have had individuals challenging the authority of Moses, challenging Aaron. We’ve had Miriam challenging Moses’s authority. We had the rebellion of Korah. We’ve had this constant complaint throughout the 40 years of no food, or the food we don’t like, or no water. So we cannot say that this division and this split within the people was something new. But this split we are now looking at is indeed something new and very challenging.

The background to it is that the children of Israel have come up from Sinai, and from Sinai they moved into what we would now call the Negev, and passed over into Transjordan. And they were moving northwards, parallel with the Dead Sea, and ending up in front of the river Jordan, where they’re going to cross a bit further up by Jericho. But meanwhile, as they came into Transjordan, they met the different tribes that lived there. Some of these tribes were, if you like, friendly. Some of these tribes said, “We don’t want anything to do with you.” And some of these tribes actually came out and fought. And the two that fought, Sihon of the Amorites and Og of Bashan, were defeated, and the Israelites took over all that territory, that territory on what we call the East Bank of the River Jordan. And it seems, over a period of months, they began to settle there. And some of the tribes, mainly the tribes who are cattle or sheep raisers, but mainly cattle people liked that area, which was, in a sense like the Wild West of the United States of America. It was good for ranching and they wanted to stay there. The others preferred and wanted to go to the land that God had promised, and God had promised them the land of Canaan. God had not promised them the eastern bank of the River Jordan. And so this is the background to what we have today. And this, chapter 32, starts off that , There were lots of herding tribes, , that they had built up a huge big business, a whole lot of cattle ranchers. You wonder, how was this possible? How was this possible over 40 years in the desert? And they weren’t by necessarily good grazing land, or unless things had changed since then. How did they do this? One version is that they were already in Egypt.

Some of the Israelites were not slaves, and some of the Israelites were able to run businesses of some sort or another. So they have already, in the land of Egypt, built up little industries. So that is one possible problem, that they have all these huge flocks, and they look across, and they see the land on the East Bank, the land of Jazer, the land of Gilead, . And this was perfect cattle breeding or cattle territory. So , so the sons Gad and the sons of Reuben, these two tribes, and notice how their order has been changed. In the first one it was Reuben first, and then there was Gad after that. So we are now verse two, chapter 32. And the sons of Gad and Reuben go to Moses and to Eleazar Kohar. So now Aaron is out of the picture, and they’re approaching Moses, and the head of the priesthood who stands next to Moses who carries this breastplate, which is a kind of an oracle that, if you like, provides information when God is not speaking directly to Moses himself. And also all of the congregation are gathering together. So this is a national convention of everybody to decide on a challenging issue. So the leaders of Gad and Reuben turn to Moses and Aaron and in verse three they say the following, “The towns of Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon. These are the towns that we have conquered and we are settled in them.” This was the area where they were smitten, they were destroyed by the congregation of Israel And it is a land for flocks. And we are herders. We live off flocks. In verse six. “If we have found favour in your eyes,” that’s, if we can get your agreement. “We would like to have this land as our inheritance.”

“We do not want to cross over the river Jordan to the hilly country on what we now call the West Bank or Shamran, or Samaria, or Judea.” So their request is to stay. Now we are dealing with the whole question of inheritance, the how we’re going to divide up the land of Israel between the different tribes. And they’re basically saying, we don’t want to be part of you lot. We want to stay over here, not in the land that God promised, although some people interpret the promise of God to take over the land all the way up to the Euphrates from the Mediterranean. But nevertheless the land of Canaan is the specific land that God promised, and the land of Canaan specifically is this area that we know it today. So in verse six, when Moses hears this request to the sons of Gad and Reuben. “Do you really expect that your brothers will come and join the fight to take the land of Canaan and you will stay here, not involved, sitting in the diaspora, comfortable?” In verse seven, “Why are you going to undermine the hearts of the Israelites, those who have to cross over to the land which God has given? God has given that land seemingly, not this land.” And of course you know this is a massive debate to this day. ‘Cause as you know in Israel for example, the Herut party or the Jabotinsky-ites, on their flag have the land of Israel from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. And so they claim that the whole of the British mandate, which included what is now Israel and Jordan, was really one, or shall we say one area of territory that was supposed to be divided up between the Jews, and the Israelites, and the Palestinians, but not necessarily in the way that finally it was decided after the second world war. And that is still a debate as to what constitutes the territory of Israel. So for example, in the Canaanite era, and in the era of 3000 years ago, the coastal plane wasn’t part of Canaan in that sense because that was Philistinian.

So the whole question of what is Israel, and what is the land is debatable, and there are so many different versions that I do recommend you try looking on the internet, whichever way you get onto the internet, the biblical territory, the biblical territory of the 12 tribes. And you’ll see that in certain areas it exceeds what we have today and in certain areas it leaves out areas that we have today. So the whole question is an ongoing debate, but here it is just a principle of these two tribes who want to stay on the East Bank. And so Moses’ concern is, we are now splitting up the people. The people as a whole have invaded so far and we’ve conquered two territories, but they’ve still got a lot of fighting to do on the other side. And if two tribes, and not only two very big tribes are going to stay on the East Bank, then that’s not fair. They’ve already got their territory, they don’t have to fight anymore, whereas the others unfortunately do. So verse seven he asks, “You are going to undermine those Israelites and they may refuse to cross the river Jordan?” In which case the other side of the coin is, then you’ll have them to deal with here, not only you. “And not only that, this kind of division within us is something that the previous generation had in the case of Kadesh Barnea. This was when we sent the troops, the spies in, or the the tourists to the land of Canaan 40 years ago when we were going to invade, and they came back and they ruined, if you like, they undermined the will of the people to invade. They frightened them off. They said it’s too difficult.

And as a result we were set back a whole generation. And now what you are doing amounts to the same thing. You are basically saying, "Look, we don’t want that land of Canaan, it’s too much of a problem. There are too many fights still ahead. We’d rather just stay on this side.” And that’s what happened in verse nine in that generation. They came up, these 10 bad guys and the two good guys, they came up from the valley of Eshcol, they saw the land, and they decided it was too tough. And so they turned the hearts, they undermined the will of the people to go into the land that God had promised them. So God was angry with them in verse 10. And as a result he swore, saying, “These people who’ve come out of Egypt above the age of 20, all of them, they were the fighting people who were supposed to go in. I swore I’d give them the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they would follow me, but only they didn’t.” Only Caleb, in verse 12, Jephunneh the Kenizzite, interesting term there, because that’s a term really that applies later on to the inheritance that he had. They were favourable, they were faithful to God, and they stood by. And God was angry then with Israel. And he turned them back to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Until that whole generation, that did evil in the eyes of God, had disappeared. And you might notice there is a bit of a contradiction already. Another contradiction, there are lots of contradictions. It’s fascinating how many there are. Because we said before we were talking about those who were 20 years older, those who were 20 years and up in verse 11. Only they will not see, but the others below that would. So when we talk about a whole generation, we don’t mean it literally, absolutely everyone.

And so this is a phenomenon that goes through the Torah that often Numbers are not exactly what they seem to be, and they are what appear to be contradictions. So anyway, the principle here that we’re standing with is that these people, 40 years ago, at the time of the spies did not go in. We didn’t let them go into the land of Canaan, because they weren’t ready. And now it seems that you are doing the same thing. Verse 14. “You have a arisen in the place of that previous generation. The whole culture,” tarbut is culture in modern Hebrew. But here it means a whole gathering of people who sinned, who didn’t have faith. Who didn’t actually sin as such, in the sense of doing a specific action, but they were people who went against the will of God and that brought down God’s anger against them. Verse 15. “If you turn away from God, and then force them to remain in the wilderness outside of the land of Canaan,” because you’re not helping, “you will have destroyed this people, you’ll destroy the whole project. That’s what you will do.” So this seems very clearly he is saying, absolutely not. You are undermining the lot of us. You are destroying everything we’ve been working for these last 40 years. So obviously his response was a slap in the face, if you like, to these two tribes. And so verse 16, they come back with a proposal, so they don’t give up that easy and their proposal goes like this.

Verse 16. “Then they gathered around him,” meaning everybody there, they said, “Look, this is our proposal.” “We will build,” kind of, the English gives sheep foals, but it’s basically “place pens and to keep our flocks here so that they can stay here and go out and graze in this area. And,” “We will build also little settlements, cities even for our young people.” I suppose that means the families, young women as well as young men, the children who are going to stay here. So we are going to build this kind of place for them to stay on the East Bank. Some people would say you’d call them settlements. In verse 17, “We will be pioneers in the front. We’ll be the vanguard, the tough guys in the front fighting for the children of Israel.” “Until we get for them their place, their locations, their inheritance on the other side. "And we will leave our young people in walled cities.” “In case anybody else, while we are away, wants to attack us. So we’ll have them protected. "And we will not return,” in verse 18, “Until everybody has his territory.” Verse 19, “We will not share with you,” “The other part of the river of Canaan, the other side of the river.” “For us, our territory will be on the east bank,” “to the east side.” So this will benefit you in the sense also, we won’t take up some of that territory, and you’ll be able to share it amongst yourselves. So not only will we fight and not undermine you, we’ll be there fighting and leaving our families behind, but we will give you more territory.

So then Moses stops and he thinks, well maybe that’s a possibility. I’m prepared to consider it. Verse 20. “And Moses says to them, ‘I’ll make a condition with you.’” So this is all a condition, and it’s very important here, because normally when we talk of condition we talk about only one condition. But this is going to be a double-edged condition. And this is going to be something which is called throughout the Talmud , a double edge oath. Like the oath of bene Gad or of bene Reuben. And there’s another group coming in that isn’t mentioned here, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. Dunno why they weren’t there at the beginning, but they are going to join them later on. So it’s going to be two and a half tribes. So this condition starts off like this. Verse 20. Moses say, “If you do this,” “If you do come along and fight in war for God for the sake of the rest of the people.” Verse 21. “And all your fighting men are going to crossover and dispossess the enemies on the other side and the land will be conquered before God. Then you may go back home. And you’ll be free from any obligation to God or the rest of the Jewish people, and the territory on the East Bank will be your territory before God.” So that is the first side of the condition. Now the second side is. “But if you do not do this, you’ll have sinned to God, and you should know that you will end up being destroyed yourselves.

You will lose everything.” So this is the other side. If you come over, fine, but if on the other hand you don’t come over, then there are going to be consequences. Verse 24. “Build cities for your young people and places for your flocks. But you must do exactly as you have said.” And so the Gad and the Reuben say to Moses, they now have heard what he says, they’re now going to repeat what he said as their commitment. They say in verse 26. “All our livestock will remain in the area around Gilead. While your servants, we will join the army, we will go as you say.” So in verse 28. And so they command and they say. Once again they, up to now, have only proposed. Now they are laying out the actual vow to be taken. And so once again we have this repetition of language, this reinforcement of language in the text of the Bible. So Moses says to them, right, here we go. “If the sons of Gad and Reuben, they march over with the armies of God and conquer the land, and are given Gilead then. They will have the land on the East bank. They will then, if they don’t want to cross over, they will receive holdings amongst you in the land of Canaan. So now he’s offering something else. He’s saying that, if they were not to carry out this arrangement, and they don’t accept the deal I’m offering them, then they will still be able to claim land on the West Bank. If they do accept it, then not. To which then, Gad and Reuben say, okay, whatever you say is right, we accept that. We accept the fact that we won’t have territory on the Canaanite side if we are keeping territory on the right side. But again 32, "We will pass before into land of Canaan to help you attain it, and we will fulfil the commitment.” And so that’s what happened.

Verse 33, here you’ve got the addition of the half tribe of Manasseh, who we haven’t mentioned up to now. He gave them to Gad and Reuben, two and a half tribes, Manasseh son of Joseph, the area of Sihon king of the Amorites, the area of Og, the king of Bashan. The land, the territories, properties, everything roundabout. And that’s why in verse 34 they then built, Gad built, Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer, Atroth-shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah, Beth-nimrah, and Beth-haran. They built all those territories. Reuben also built Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim, Nebo, Baal-meon, Sibmah. And they gave new names to the places that they had built. And there was one kind of outlier here. There was Machir, the son of Manasseh, went alone to Gilead. Gilead was an existing town further in the north that gave the name to the whole area, which was called Gilead. But he, his small little tribe by himself, went and they kicked out the Amorites there, and they found settlement specifically round Gilead. So in verse 14, Moses then gives Gilead to Machir Manasseh, nothing to do with the other two and a half tribes who were cattlemen. This was separate, a separate issue. And Jair, who was from the tribe of Manasseh too, he went and he conquered this area. So we have Nobah captures Kenath and B calls it Nobah. So we have now, in a sense, a split of three. You’ve got Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, who have been given land on the East Bank. In addition to that, some families of Gilead of Manasseh have gone and conquered an additional territory to the north and that’s theirs. And meanwhile we are now preparing for everybody to cross over into the river Jordan. So we have this double condition of the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and Manasseh.

Moses has capitulated. It’s interesting, there’s no consultation, there’s no question of going back to ask God. This is his capitulation to the two and a half tribes. And the whole question of whether he was right or wrong, in a sense was, if you like, proven by history. And history tells us that those two and a half tribes drew over time further and further away from the main body and in fact they were conquered and they were assimilated before the main bodies of the exile. So history would say it seemed like a fair compromise at the time, but taking a long-term view, it was not the right decision to take. Which again, coming back to the world in which we live is, how do we know which are the right decisions? Which were the right military decisions, territorial concessions that were made under pressure, would we have been better had they not been made, or did we have no option? Was it right at the time? These are questions that remain open-ended, particularly in the context of Israel’s, if you like, isolation from the rest of the world today. So there we now turn to routine list of, in chapter 33, a list basically of the routes that they took when they came out of Egypt. And you may wonder why do we need a list? Well it’s part of their history and they’re very proud of their history and they want to make sure that these records are maintained even though we can’t exactly identify nowadays what this territory was. So I’m going unfortunately to, so I am going to go through this list of these tribes as stated here in 33. It’s not the most exciting, but for the record at any rate. So this is the journey that the children of Israel, verse one, came out of Egypt and went together with Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote down all their comings and their goings according to God.

And they travelled, first of all, when they came out of Egypt from Ramses. In the first month, in the 15th day of the first month, the morning after the Pesach, the children of Israel went up with a high hand before all Egypt. Verse four. They were, the Egyptians were meanwhile burying those people who had been struck down dead as God had carried out the plagues against them. And that’s why they were able to, the children of Israel to go, because the Egyptians were busy. Now this is interesting. This is not something that was mentioned before. Certainly not mentioned in the book of Exodus, that they were busy burying, and that’s why they couldn’t come out. Is this something that was added later? We are going to discuss this when we discussed the last book. Anyway, the children of Israel in verse five come from Ramses and they encamp around Succoth. And they then journeyed from Succoth and they encamped at a place called Etham, at the edge of the wilderness. So they hadn’t got to the wilderness yet. And they journeyed in verse seven from Etham, and they came to a place called Pi-hahiroth, which is near place called Baal-zephon by Migdol. And again, we dunno accurately what these places were, but they were known to them then. And they travelled in verse eight from Pi-hahiroth and they crossed over the sea into the wilderness, and they travelled for three days in the wilderness, and they camped at Marah. Now Marah was where the water was bitter and they had a fight with Moses and Aaron, but fortunately for them at that moment, if you remember, Moses and Aaron were able to turn the bitter waters into sweet water. So they got over that crisis. And then they travelled on from Marah, they came to Elim, and in Elim there was an amazing oasis. There were 12 wells of water and 70 date palms, and they camped there. Now again, I mean this is fantastic, but on the other hand, if you take the numbers of 600,000, that seems not enough to keep them happy during that time.

So it does seem to point to a lesser number. Anyway, they travelled on from there. Some places were good, some were bad. In verse 10 they travelled from Elim and they camped by the Red Sea. So they’ve gone down south to the Red Sea and they travelled from the wilderness of Sin and they came to Dophkah. And they travelled from Dophkah and they camped at Alush. And they travelled from Alush in verse 14, and they came to Rephidem, and there wasn’t water then for the people there at Rephidem. And it doesn’t say anything more about that. And remember, look what else it has missed out, it’s missed out crossing the Red Sea. It just says they came to the Red Sea. They came there and they encamped, but it doesn’t talk about anything happening there. Very strange. And they went over and they came to Rephidem. And at Rephidem, what do they mention? They mentioned that there was simply the question of a problem of water. But they didn’t mention in any way the whole question of whether the battle took place against Amalek. And they travelled on from Rephidem, and they came to the wilderness of Sinai. And they travelled on from the wilderness of Sinai and they came to Kibroth-hattaavah. And Kibroth-hattaavah was a place where they wanted meat and they rebelled against Moses, and the flocks of, what were the birds called, of the quails came down and provided them with meat. And they travelled on, they came to Hazeroth. And verse 18 they travelled from Hazeroth, they came to Rithmah, and from Rithmah they carried on to Rimmon-perez. And they’d carried on from Rimmon-perez, they came to Libnah. And they travelled on from Libnah and they came to Rissah. And they travelled on from Rissah and they came to Kehelath.

And they travelled from Kehelath and they came to Mount Shepher. And they travelled from Mount Shepher and they came to Haradah. And they travelled on from Haradah and they encamped at Makheloth. And they travelled from Makheloth and they encamped at Tahath. They came from Terah and they went on to Mithkah. And from Mithkah they encamped at Hashmonah. This is all, I guess, in the 40 years. And they travelled from Hashmonah and they came to Moseroth. And they travelled to Moseroth and they came to Bene-jaakan. And they travelled from Bene-jaakan and they came to Hor-haggidgad. And from Hor-haggidgad they came to Jotbath. Now Jotbath, we know where that is, Jotbath today, but does that mean that was the Jotbath then? and then from Abronah they came to Ezion-geber. And we know that Ezion-geber was by Elath, and they’re down by Elath, and through there they go to Ezion-geber, and they come to Kadesh. And Kadesh is the place where they spent most of the 40 years. And they travelled from Kadesh and they came to Hor-haggidgad. And that was the area on the edge of Edom. And that’s where Aaron, in verse 38, went up to Mount Hor and died in the 40th year of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt. The fifth month, in the first of that month. And Aron was 123 years old when he died on Mount Hor. And then we remember the Canaanites in 40, King Arad, who lived in the south, he came against Israel, and they travelled and they dealt with him. And they travelled on from Mount Hor, they came to Zalmonah. And from Zalmonah to Punon, and from Punon to Oboth, and from Oboth they came to Iye-abarim, in the edge of Moab. And they travelled on from Dibon-gad and they came to Almon-diblathaim. And they travelled on from Almon-diblathaim and they came to the hills of Abarim.

And this is the land of Nebo, where Moses is going to die. They travel from Abarim, and they came to opposite Jericho. And by then they camped at Abel-shittim, at another part, and this is where God says to Moses, over the river Jordan, the other side, he says, speak to them and say you are all going, travelling over to land of Canaan. You are going to inherit the territory. You must get rid of the enemies who are there, get rid of all their idols, destroy everything and then you can inherit their land. And you will allocate the land according to your tribes and according to the numbers. And I warn you that if you don’t get rid of the local inhabitants, they will remain a thorn in your side, and they will lead you off the tracks, and you will end up in a mess. Now two things I want to say there before I turn to questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: One of them is, the whole statement about, “You must get rid of them,” is a nice idea, but it never happened. When you look through the book of Judges, and the book of Samuel, and the Kings, you’ll see that there were Canaanites still living in the area. Does that mean they couldn’t get rid of them?

A: No, because they were able to get rid of them, in the sense that they were able to conquer other territories. Think even at the time of David and Moses and Solomon who expanded the territory that covered other areas. So they were not incapable. But clearly they took this as, if you like, a warning of the dangers. Another way of saying how problematic assimilation was going to be and why they had to be on the outlook for it and concerned about it. So we’re almost at the end of the book.

But here I’m going to turn now to questions and deal with ‘em as they come up. I don’t know what Marty and Kala are talking about here, but anyway…

Q: “Was there a third tribe,” says Rose’s iPhone, “That settled on the other side of the river Jordan?”

A: Yes, this was the tribe of Manasseh, which is mentioned later on. Romaine says, “It seems conflict is native to the Torah. It always seems to centre on the land, the focus of the journey. History seems to disagree.” Look, the truth is that the location of Israel at the centre of this battle between the powers of the north and the east, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Egypt down below was an ongoing battle. They were always caught in the middle, and they were always in conflict with themselves, spitting into different kingdoms, and against other people. So you may argue, as the question is, why, when Moses came out of Egypt, didn’t he turn left instead of going right? He would’ve A, had more oil, and he would’ve had more peace. But then maybe this is what enabled us to survive. The fact that we had to adapt. The fact that we were, if you like, fertilised by other cultures. That we had all this external influence coming, that was a danger in one sense, but in another sense was a challenge. And looking through history, in a sense it almost seems it was a privilege, even though the fact of the matter is it landed us in a horrible situation time and time again. And so you are right, there was always conflict, we’ve always lived in conflict throughout our existence, and clearly it’s never going to end, and clearly it’s going to go on, and that makes us who we are.

Why did Moses add the half tribe of Manasseh? We’re not told. They obviously approached and said, “Well look, if you’re giving to them, why not us? We’ve also got sheep.” But obviously they came and asked and he made that concession, in the same way he made this concession to Gilead for that tribe to have an area of its own.

Q: Shelly says, “Is there any significance of the fact that Rubin’s mother was Leia, Gad’s mother was Ilpa, the maid of Leia, Manasseh was Joseph’s son? Did Moses add on a half Manasseh tribe to balance Rachel’s tribe with Leia’s tribes?”

A: And Shelly, it’s a brilliant idea. I’ve never thought of that. And I think it’s certainly the case that there will have been an alliance between Leia and her concubine as opposed to Rachel and her concubine. Now, did Moses himself add Manasseh for that reason? I honestly don’t know. We have no evidence of that one way or another. So your theory is as good as mine. “Reuben is actually the firstborn of Jacob had a problem with Belar sharing her bed. For this, he lost two portions, however he was not completely excluded.

Q: Do you think this is why the tribe is named mostly second to God?”

A: That’s again, it’s a brilliant point Rose, an absolutely brilliant point. But the trouble is, there are so many cases in the Torah where there are inconsistencies. I think for example, the fact that Jacob was called Israel, and then he is called Jacob again, and he is called Israel again. Names are used in a very, very funny way. And so there is no consistency to how names are used, and therefore this particular issue of how you balance the different tribes is something which is not actually clear, and therefore there is no single answer to that question.

Thank you, Romaine.

Q: Red Sea or Sea of Reeds?

A: Well that’s very good, because the Hebrew is Yam Suph, and Suph is definitely reeds. It’s not red. Now there’s some argument about why it was called red. But the truth of the matter is when we say Red Sea, we are merely using non-Jewish terminology. From our point of view, it’s always Yam Suph, which means the Reed Sea.

Romaine answers, “Thought provoking, our growth through conquering and learning from other people. Could this be relevant today?” Yes, I think it is.

So thank you everybody. And that’s the end for today.