The Tribes Beyond the Jordan
15 Moses gave to the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their families. 16 Their border was from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the plain by Medeba; 17 Heshbon, and all its cities that are in the plain; Dibon, Bamoth Baal, Beth Baal Meon, 18 Jahaz, Kedemoth, Mephaath, 19 Kiriathaim, Sibmah, Zereth Shahar in the mount of the valley, 20 Beth Peor, the slopes of Pisgah, Beth Jeshimoth, 21 all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses struck with the chiefs of Midian, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the princes of Sihon, who lived in the land. 22 The children of Israel also killed Balaam the son of Beor, the soothsayer, with the sword, among the rest of their slain. 23 The border of the children of Reuben was the bank of the Jordan. This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben according to their families, the cities and its villages. 24 Moses gave to the tribe of Gad, to the children of Gad, according to their families. 25 Their border was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half the land of the children of Ammon, to Aroer that is near Rabbah; 26 and from Heshbon to Ramath Mizpeh, and Betonim; and from Mahanaim to the border of Debir; 27 and in the valley, Beth Haram, Beth Nimrah, Succoth, and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon, the Jordan’s bank, to the uttermost part of the sea of Chinnereth beyond the Jordan eastward. 28 This is the inheritance of the children of Gad according to their families, the cities and its villages. 29 Moses gave an inheritance to the half-tribe of Manasseh. It was for the half-tribe of the children of Manasseh according to their families. 30 Their border was from Mahanaim, all Bashan, all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, and all the villages of Jair, which are in Bashan, sixty cities. 31 Half Gilead, Ashtaroth, and Edrei, the cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, were for the children of Machir the son of Manasseh, even for the half of the children of Machir according to their families. 32 These are the inheritances which Moses distributed in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan at Jericho, eastward. 33 But Moses gave no inheritance to the tribe of Levi. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he spoke to them.
Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh are settled in Moses' old grants — the ledger honoring a dead man's word line by line.
Moses gave to the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their families.
Three times the formula begins with a dead man's name — Moses gave Joshua 13:15 Joshua 13:24 Joshua 13:29 — and the repetition is the point. The east-bank tribes had bargained with Moses for the pasture lands of Sihon and Og Numbers 32:1–5, and Moses' grant, made on conditions since fulfilled Joshua 1:12–15, is executed by his successor without revision. Nothing in the allocation is renegotiated by the new administration; a promise does not die with the promiser, which is the whole book's argument applied to its human subplot.
16 Their border was from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the plain by Medeba; 17 Heshbon, and all its cities that are in the plain; Dibon, Bamoth Baal, Beth Baal Meon, 18 Jahaz, Kedemoth, Mephaath, 19 Kiriathaim, Sibmah, Zereth Shahar in the mount of the valley, 20 Beth Peor, the slopes of Pisgah, Beth Jeshimoth,
Reuben's roll is a tour of loaded ground. Bamoth Baal and Beth Peor are the stations of the Balaam episode — the high places where a hired prophet tried four times to curse the camp below Numbers 22:41 Numbers 23:28 — and the slopes of Pisgah rise to the summit where Moses saw the land he would not enter and was buried opposite Beth Peor Deuteronomy 34:1 Deuteronomy 34:6. Israel's families now farm the overlooks of their own story: the land of the failed curse has become somebody's field boundary, which is what fulfilled promises look like a generation on.
And half the land of the children of Ammon, to Aroer that is near Rabbah... the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon Joshua 13:25 Joshua 13:27.
Gad takes Gilead's center and the Jordan valley to Chinnereth's sea; half-Manasseh takes Bashan, the sixty cities of Jair's villages, Og's whole highland kingdom Joshua 13:30–31. The grants are generous — some of the region's best pasture and grain land — and the book has already shown what they cost: the east-bank fighting men served seven years west of the river for their brothers' inheritance before enjoying their own Joshua 22:2–4, the arrangement that opened the book Joshua 1:14–15.
But Moses gave no inheritance to the tribe of Levi. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he spoke to them.
The chapter closes by repeating its exception, now in its fullest form — not the offerings this time, but God himself as the portion. Framed by these two statements Joshua 13:14, the east-bank registry sits inside a parenthesis about what inheritance finally means, and the psalmists will spend the vocabulary the landless tribe was given: Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup Psalms 16:5 — every Israelite eventually praying in Levite.
held with reason What this mark means