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Numbers 32: What the Passage Says

108 claims across 42 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Numbers 32 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The tribes of Reuben and Gad, who own huge herds, ask Moses for the good grazing land east of the Jordan River instead of a share in Canaan. Moses accuses them of repeating the failure of the spies at Kadesh-barnea and discouraging Israel, so they promise to send their fighting men across the Jordan ahead of the other tribes and not go home until every Israelite has his land. Moses accepts on that condition, spells it out to Eleazar and Joshua, and grants the eastern territory to Gad, Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh. The chapter closes with a list of the towns these tribes rebuilt and the areas Machir, Jair, and Nobah captured.

Claim by Claim

  1. 32:1
    • The children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great amount of livestock.
    • Their livestock was exceedingly numerous.
    • They saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead.
    • The place was a place suitable for livestock.
  2. 32:2
    • The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came.
    • They spoke to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the leaders of the congregation.
  3. 32:3
    • They named the places Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Shebam, Nebo, and Beon.
  4. 32:4
    • The LORD struck down that land before the congregation of Israel.
    • That land is a land for livestock.
    • Your servants have livestock.
  5. 32:5
    • They said, if we have found favor in your sight.
    • They asked that this land be given to your servants as a possession.
    • They asked not to be brought across the Jordan.
  6. 32:6
    • Moses spoke to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben.
    • Moses asked whether their brothers should go to war while they themselves sit here.
  7. 32:7
    • Moses asked why they turn away the heart of the children of Israel from crossing into the land.
    • The LORD has given that land to the children of Israel.
  8. 32:8
    • Moses said their fathers did this same thing.
    • Moses sent their fathers from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.
  9. 32:9
    • Their fathers went up to the valley of Eshcol.
    • They saw the land.
    • They turned away the heart of the children of Israel from going into the land.
    • The LORD had given that land to the children of Israel.
  10. 32:10
    • The LORD's anger was kindled on that day.
    • The LORD swore an oath.
  11. 32:11
    • The LORD swore that none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, would see the land.
    • The LORD had sworn that land to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
    • The reason is that they have not wholly followed the LORD.
  12. 32:12
    • Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite is excepted from the oath.
    • Joshua the son of Nun is excepted from the oath.
    • Caleb and Joshua wholly followed the LORD.
  13. 32:13
    • The LORD's anger was kindled against Israel.
    • The LORD made them wander in the wilderness forty years.
    • The wandering lasted until the whole generation that had done evil in the sight of the LORD was finished.
  14. 32:14
    • Moses said they have risen up in the place of their fathers.
    • Moses called them a brood of sinful men.
    • Their conduct adds further to the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel.
  15. 32:15
    • If they turn away from following the LORD, he will again leave the people in the wilderness.
    • In that case they will have destroyed all this people.
  16. 32:16
    • They came near to Moses and spoke.
    • They said they would build sheepfolds there for their livestock.
    • They said they would build cities for their little ones.
  17. 32:17
    • They said they themselves would go armed and ready ahead of the children of Israel.
    • They would do so until they had brought the children of Israel to their place.
    • Their little ones would dwell in the fortified cities.
    • The reason for this is the inhabitants of the land.
  18. 32:18
    • They said they would not return to their houses until each of the children of Israel had taken his inheritance.
  19. 32:19
    • They said they would not inherit with the others on the far side of the Jordan and beyond.
    • Their inheritance has come to them on the east side of the Jordan.
  20. 32:20
    • Moses spoke to them.
    • Moses set the condition that they do this thing.
    • Moses set the condition that they arm themselves before the LORD for war.
  21. 32:21
    • Moses set the condition that every armed man among them cross the Jordan before the LORD.
    • They must do so until the LORD has driven out his enemies from before him.
  22. 32:22
    • Moses set the condition that the land be subdued before the LORD.
    • Then afterward they may return.
    • Then they will be guiltless before the LORD and before Israel.
    • Then this land will be their possession before the LORD.
  23. 32:23
    • If they do not do so, they have sinned against the LORD.
    • Moses told them to know that their sin will find them out.
  24. 32:24
    • Moses told them to build cities for their little ones.
    • Moses told them to build folds for their sheep.
    • Moses told them to do what had come out of their mouth.
  25. 32:25
    • The children of Gad and the children of Reuben spoke to Moses.
    • They said their servants would do as their lord commands.
  26. 32:26
    • They said their little ones, their wives, their flocks, and all their livestock would remain there in the cities of Gilead.
  27. 32:27
    • They said their servants would cross over, every man armed for war, before the LORD to battle.
    • They said they would do this as their lord says.
  28. 32:28
    • Moses gave orders concerning them to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel.
  29. 32:29
    • Moses spoke to them.
    • Moses set the condition that the children of Gad and the children of Reuben cross the Jordan with them, every man armed for battle before the LORD.
    • Moses set the condition that the land be subdued before them.
    • In that case they are to give them the land of Gilead as a possession.
  30. 32:30
    • If the children of Gad and Reuben do not cross over armed with them, they shall take their holding among them in the land of Canaan.
  31. 32:31
    • The children of Gad and the children of Reuben answered.
    • They said they would do as the LORD has spoken to your servants.
  32. 32:32
    • They said they would cross over armed before the LORD into the land of Canaan.
    • They said the possession of their inheritance beyond the Jordan would be theirs.
  33. 32:33
    • Moses gave to the children of Gad, the children of Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph a grant of land.
    • The grant was the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites.
    • The grant was also the kingdom of Og king of Bashan.
    • The grant included the land with its cities within their borders, the cities of the land round about.
  34. 32:34
    • The children of Gad built Dibon.
    • The children of Gad built Ataroth.
    • The children of Gad built Aroer.
  35. 32:35
    • The children of Gad built Atroth-shophan, which the King James reads as the two places Atroth and Shophan.
    • The children of Gad built Jazer.
    • The children of Gad built Jogbehah.
  36. 32:36
    • The children of Gad built Beth-nimrah.
    • The children of Gad built Beth-haran.
    • These were fortified cities.
    • They also built sheepfolds.
  37. 32:37
    • The children of Reuben built Heshbon.
    • The children of Reuben built Elealeh.
    • The children of Reuben built Kiriathaim.
  38. 32:38
    • The children of Reuben built Nebo and Baal-meon.
    • The names of Nebo and Baal-meon were changed.
    • The children of Reuben built Sibmah.
    • They gave names to the cities they built.
  39. 32:39
    • The sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead.
    • They captured Gilead.
    • They dispossessed the Amorite who was in it.
  40. 32:40
    • Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh.
    • Machir dwelt in it.
  41. 32:41
    • Jair the son of Manasseh went and captured their tent-villages.
    • He called them Havvoth-jair.
  42. 32:42
    • Nobah went and captured Kenath and its dependent villages.
    • He called it Nobah, after his own name.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

32:1
Reuben and Gad were two of the twelve tribes of Israel, named for two of Jacob's sons. "Cattle" in the King James means livestock of any kind, here mostly sheep and goats. Jazer and Gilead were high, rolling grazing country east of the Jordan River, land Israel had just taken from two local kings, territory outside Canaan proper.
32:2
Eleazar was Aaron's son, who took over as chief priest when Aaron died. The "princes of the congregation" were the heads of the tribes and clans, the standing body of leaders Israel dealt with in public matters.
32:3
These nine places are towns in the newly captured territory east of the Jordan and north of the Dead Sea, formerly Moabite and Amorite land. Several show up again in verses 34–38 in slightly different forms: Nimrah as Beth-nimrah, Shebam as Sibmah, Beon as Baal-meon.
32:4
"Thy servants" is polite self-reference when speaking to someone in authority, the way one might say "your humble petitioners." It does not mean they were slaves.
32:5
Crossing the Jordan meant entering Canaan, the land promised to Abraham's descendants. The land east of the river was not part of that promise, so the request is to settle outside the borders Israel was marching toward.
32:6
"Brethren" means the men of the other tribes. Israel's army was a levy raised from every tribe, so a tribe that stayed home shifted the fighting onto everyone else.
32:7
To lose heart is to stop feeling brave. Moses is afraid the others will be scared to go.
32:8
Kadesh-barnea was an oasis in the desert south of Canaan where Israel camped for a long stretch. From there Moses had sent twelve scouts into the land (Numbers 13), a generation earlier.
32:9
The Valley of Eshcol lay near Hebron; the scouts cut a huge cluster of grapes there. Ten of the twelve came back reporting the land unconquerable, and the people refused to go in, the episode Moses is now throwing back at Gad and Reuben.
32:10
God made a promise here that could not be changed. People called this kind of promise an oath.
32:11
Twenty was the age at which a man was entered in the census and counted as fit for military service. The oath therefore covered the entire fighting generation that had left Egypt.
32:12
"Kenizzite" is a clan name. Kenaz appears in Genesis as an Edomite family, so Caleb's line may have come into Israel from outside and been attached to the tribe of Judah.
32:13
The forty years is the sentence passed in Numbers 14, a year in the desert for each of the forty days the scouts spent surveying the land.
32:14
The King James "an increase of sinful men" renders a Hebrew phrase closer to "a brood of sinful men": offspring who breed true, repeating what their fathers did.
32:16
"Little ones" translates a Hebrew word for the dependents of a household, children and those unable to fight, not only small children. Sheepfolds were enclosures of piled stone, walls to pen animals at night.
32:17
To go "armed before" the others means to march in the front ranks as the advance guard, taking the first shock of any fighting. "Fenced cities" in the King James means towns with defensive walls, not fences.
32:18
A "share" of land, or inheritance, meant land given to a family to keep for good and hand down to their children.
32:19
The Hebrew expression behind "yonder side" and "this side" literally means "the Jordan region" or "across the Jordan," and which bank it points to depends on where the speaker is standing. Here the speakers are on the east bank, so "this side" is east and "yonder" is Canaan.
32:20
"Before the LORD" recurs through this chapter. It marks the campaign as a sacred undertaking carried out in God's presence, the army traveled with the ark, and it makes any promise sworn in those terms binding.
32:22
"Guiltless before the LORD" is a legal expression, not a moral verdict: they will have discharged the obligation and owe nothing further to God or to the other tribes.
32:23
The image in "your sin will find you out" is that the wrong itself hunts down the person who did it and catches him. It is not about being found out by other people.
32:24
"That which hath proceeded out of your mouth" means the promise you have just spoken. Under the rules on vows set out two chapters earlier, a commitment spoken aloud was binding and had to be carried out.
32:25
"My lord" is respectful address to Moses, the equivalent of "sir."
32:28
"Chief fathers" means the heads of the ancestral families within each tribe. Moses gives the instructions to Eleazar and Joshua because he would not himself cross the Jordan; the agreement had to be enforceable by those who would lead after him.
32:30
Canaan here means the land west of the Jordan, the territory to be divided up among the tribes. The penalty for staying home would be losing the eastern land and taking an ordinary allotment inside Canaan like everyone else.
32:33
Sihon and Og were the two kings Israel defeated on the way north (Numbers 21), which is how this eastern territory came into Israelite hands; Bashan is the fertile highland northeast of the Sea of Galilee. Manasseh and Ephraim were sons of Joseph counted as two tribes in their own right; part of Manasseh's clans settled east of the river, which is why it is called a half tribe.
32:34
"Built" here means rebuilt and fortified: these were existing towns, damaged in the fighting, that the settlers put back into shape.
32:38
Nebo and Baal-meon carry the names of gods (Nebo from the deity Nabu, Baal the Canaanite storm god) which is why the settlers renamed them. The text notes the change without recording the new names.
32:39
Machir was Manasseh's oldest son, and the name stands for the clan descended from him. The Amorites were one of the peoples living in the region before Israel arrived.
32:41
"Small towns" translates a Hebrew word for clusters of unwalled settlements or tent-villages. Havvoth-jair means "the villages of Jair."
32:42
Renaming a captured town after yourself was the ordinary way of staking a permanent claim to it.

Read Numbers 32