ויבאו בני גד, “The members of tribe of Gad etc. came; the reason why the members of the tribe of Gad were mentioned ahead of the tribe of Reuven, the senior tribe of their army group, is that it was they who had come up with the idea of remaining on the east bank of the Jordan permanently. (Ibn Ezra)

?ולמה תנואון, “and to what purpose do you want to turn away (the hearts)?” This word is read as we spelled it, but is spelled as a transitive word, the letter י appearing in the text instead of the letter ו, before the last letter.

בלתי כלב בן יפונה, ”except for Calev, son of Y’funeh.” If you were to ask how come that also Yair, son of Menashe entered the Holy Land (crossed the Jordan) and was killed during the siege on Ai, together with 35 comrades in arms (Talmud tractate Sanhedrin, folio 44) (according to Joshua 7,8) we have to answer that the decree issued after the Sin of the Spies concerning who would not be allowed to enter the Holy Land did not apply to people under the age of twenty at the time it was decreed, nor did it apply to people over the age of fifty, as neither category would have been drafted into military service, so that the spies’ refusal to undertake a campaign against the Canaanites would not have affected them personally.

להניחו, “he will again leave you;” the letter ח in this word was exchanged from the original letter ע; we have proof of this in verse 13 in the word ויניעם, “He made them wander.” The word להניחו in this verse means that failure of the tribes of Reuven and Gad to reconsider will extend the length of their whole generation in exile in the desert, which includes constantly having to move. If the two tribes were to decline to settle in the west bank, history would likely repeat itself, and another generation would not get to see the promised Land. There are commentators who understand the word להניחו, as “to abandon it;” this would be analogous to Psalms 119,121: בל תניחני לעושקי, “do not abandon me to those who would wrong me.”

ואנחנו חלץ חושים, “we will be ready armed to act as vanguard;” These tribes promised, after first having settled their families and livestock, not only to fight along the other tribes but to do so in the most exposed positions. They would be able to do so, precisely because they would not be encumbered by their families and livestock.

לפני בני ישראל, they would lead the fight on behalf of the people just as they also had taken the lead in settling their families.

כל חלוץ צבא, “every man that is armed for war.” Apparently, the author’s version of the text had the vowel kametz under the letter ח instead of the vowel patach. His commentary presupposes this. As in our editions we have the vowel chataf patach, we need not bother copying his commentary.

ולחצי שבט מנשה, “and as far has half of the tribe Menashe is concerned, etc.” they had not requested to be given their ancestral heritage in the lands previously owned by Sichon and Og; but seeing it was their founding father, Joseph’s first born son who had searched the sacks of Joseph who had caused them to tear up their garments when he accused one of the brothers as having stolen his father’s goblet, they were given as compensation two sections of land on the east bank of the Jordan. (Bereshit Rabbah 84,20)

מוסבות שם, “their names being changed;” originally they had been known as Ammon and Moav; subsequently they became known as Sichon and Og.

ויתן משה את הגלעד למכיר, “Moses gave the region known as Hagilad, to Machir; this was because he was the firstborn of Menashe’s sons, so that Moses allocated his share to him first. Seeing that at that time Machir was already aged, having been too old to be part of the army, he gave him a fortified city. He remained there during the 14 years that his sons as well as the two and a half tribes were engaged in fighting with the tribes who would settle on the West Bank.

ויאיר בן מנשה, “meanwhile Yair, son of Menashe,” he was called after his mother, even though he was from the tribe of Yehudah (Ibn Ezra), as it is written that Chetzron. son of Yehudah married a daughter of Machir and sired Seguv from that marriage. Seguv in turn sired Yair, and they owned cities in Gilead. (Compare Chronicles I 2,21) We find a similar situation in Ezra 2,61 where priests were named after Barzilai the Giladi, who was not a priest. We cannot offer an excuse for how it came about that a member of one tribe acquired part of another tribe’s ancestral heritage. We can only surmise that the rules of intermarriage between members of tribes did not apply as strictly in the lands conquered on the East Bank of the Jordan, formerly belonging to the tribe of the Emorites, as it did to the land west of the river Jordan.

ויקרא אתהן חוות יאיר, “and he named them;” ‘the villages of Yair.’ This was to commemorate Yair who had been killed in the battles for Ai. (verse 7) It is recorded here as it took place before the bulk of the country had been conquered, and was testimony to the bravery of Yair.

ונובח, and Novach, one of the sons of Menashe (not substantiated)

ויקרא לה, “he named it,” he (Novach) renamed K’nath. The word נבח is spelled “weak,” the letter ב not having a dot in it. This suggests that the renaming was temporary, and lasted only until the members of his tribe returned from helping the other tribes conquer the land on the West Bank (14 years). It had to be named so, so that in the interval no one could stake a claim to this land and take it away from its rightful owner who was an absentee. This is what Rashi explains here, quoting Rabbi Moshe Hadarshan. He wonders how Rabbi Moshe Hadarshan can explain this phenomenon in 2 similar situations in Ruth 2,14 and Zecharyah 5,11.where the words בית and בעז also have no dot in the letter ב. There are some commentators who try to explain the absence of the dots in the 2 examples I just mentioned. Their reasoning is brilliant, but I decided that it is not relevant to us here as texts composed by authors of the books of prophets or Scriptures need not be examined as carefully as those in the Torah. Here we must assume that the sages responsible for the vocalisation in the Torah, had been inspired with Holy Spirit when they performed their task.