ויבואו בני גד ובני ראובן, :”The Children of Gad and the Children of Reuven came, etc. In the preceding verse where the background to the quest of the tribes has been described, the tribe of Reuben is mentioned ahead of the tribe of Gad. Why did the Torah switch the order here? On the one hand, Reuven was the descendant of Yaakov’s major wife Leah, whereas Gad was the son of one of the handmaidens. On the other hand, it was the Children of Gad who had conceived the whole idea of settling on the east bank of the Jordan. Not only that, we know from Yaakov’s blessings in Genesis 49,19 as well as from Moses’ blessing of Gad in Deut. 33,20, that this tribe was militant and fearless. Their members did not consider that their relative isolation on the east bank from the other tribes would pose security problems for them.

כי באה נחלתינו אלינו, ”for our inheritance has already come to us.” According to Rashi they meant that they already considered their share on the east bank as a fait accomplit, as an irreversible fact. Nachmanides argues that it would be most inappropriate for these tribes to speak in such terms in Moses’ presence, as it had only been promised to them conditionally. What they said was that they did not plan to inherit with the other tribes on the west bank and to thereby reduce the size of the other tribes’ inheritance, seeing that they had already received their allocation on the east bank. They phrased all this as a request, pointing out that since they owned more cattle than the other tribes this would be appropriate as the land on the east bank was admirably suited for grazing cattle.

ויאמר בני גד ובני ראובן, ”the Children of Gad and the Children of Reuven said, etc.:” The Torah did not use the plural mode ויאמרו, “they said,” as one spokesman for both tribes did the talking.

אם יעברו... ונתתם, “if they will cross, etc.,….then you will give.” Nachmanides sees in this verse a clear indication that at this time Moses did not give these two tribes all the land they had requested, except the cities that were required to accommodate their families during the period that their fighting men marched with the main body of the Jewish people. These were the towns that are mentioned here by name. The two tribes fortified those towns before moving with the balance of the people cross the Jordan. The rest of the land on the east bank they left as desolate land. This is why Joshua and the elders told them that if they would fulfill their undertaking to Moses they would also receive the areas not yet distributed (Joshua 1,12-16) Ibn Ezra explains on verse 30 that the implied meaning of the verse is that if these two tribes were not going to cross voluntarily with the main body, they would be compelled to do so against their will. As a result of such an eventuality they would receive their ancestral share on the west bank.

ויענו בני גד ובני ראובן לאמור, וגו, The Children of Gad and 'the Children of Reuven responded by saying:” נחנו נעבור חלוצים, “we are going to cross as the vanguard.” Nachmanides understands the two tribes as saying to Moses that there was no need to spell out what would happen if they did not cross the Jordan, etc.; not only would they do so but they would be in the forefront of the fighting men. Seeing that Moses’ instructions were G’d’s words, it was unthinkable that they should not accept His command. Note that originally, (verse 25) they had promised to do what Moses would command, and now they rephrase this saying they would do what G’d had commanded.

ולחצי שבט מנשה, ”and for half the tribe of Menashe;” Nachmanides writes that originally, the members of that tribe had not requested that any of their ancestral share should be on the east bank. When the tribe saw that this whole huge chunk of land had been allocated to only two tribes, and that it was far more than these two tribes could expect to populate adequately so that a call went out for anyone interested to join them in settling that part of the land, some people of the tribe of Menashe expressed their willingness to do so. Possibly, these members of the tribe of Menashe were also herdsmen and owned substantial amounts of sheep and cattle. The meaning of the words ולחצי שבט מנשה therefore is not to be taken literally, as only two of the families of the tribe of Menashe are reported as living in that area, [eight families are mentioned including Tzelofchod. Ed.] The two families that were interested were that of Machir and that of Gilead. Between them they accounted for far fewer than half the tribe of 52000 fighting men at last count. The land and who it was shared out to, is mentioned only in summary form here, whereas in the Book of Joshua, chapter 13, more details are provided.

ואת נבו ואת בעל מעון מוסבות שם, “and Nebo and Baal-meon, with altered names;” Rashi says that the names Nebo and Baal-meon were names of pagan deities and the members of the tribe of Reuven changed the names of these towns. Nachmanides raises the question that this is not sufficient reason to inform us of the names of these pagan deities. All the Torah had to write was that the members of the tribe of Reuven rebuilt these towns and changed their names. The names of the idolatries did not need to be revealed. It is the Torah’s custom elsewhere that when cities of pagans were captured to inform us only of the new names given to them by their captors. Furthermore, the words את שמות הערים אשר בנו “the names of the cities which they built,” are completely superfluous, as we already have been told in the first half of the verse that we are speaking of cities rebuilt by the members of the tribe of Reuven. These words therefore cannot refer to the cities of Nebo and Baal-meon. I believe therefore, that the names mentioned used to be the names of these towns while they were still part of the land of Moav, before Sichon had captured them from the first King of Moav. The members of the tribe of Reuven continued to call them by these names, as the Torah nowhere says that ויקראו שמות לערים אשר בנו, “they gave names to the cities that they had built.” The Torah only wrote: ויקראו בשמות את שמות הערים, meaning they named the cities they had built by the names they had borne previously. They wanted that these cities would be known as the cities that existed on that site originally. It is also possible that they meant to embarrass the Moabites by showing the world that these formerly Moabite cities now belonged to the Israelites.

The meaning of the words ואת שבמה, is that they built that town (from scratch). This was not a town that was rebuilt.

ויתן משה את הגלעד למכיר בן מנשה, “Moses gave the Gilead to Machir son of Menashe.” The meaning, of course, is that Moses allocated the territory of Gilead to the family of Machir, Machir himself having died long before the Exodus. His offspring had conquered the Gilead and it was customary that the children called themselves by the name of the founder of their family. It is remotely possible that the original Machir had still been alive, seeing that the decree that all the men between twenty and sixty who had been alive at the time of the Exodus would die in the desert would not have applied to, him seeing that he would have been way past 60 at the time of the Exodus.

ויאיר בן מנשה, “and Yair, son of Menashe, etc.” Nachmanides writes that this man traced himself to the family tree of his mother, seeing that he had taken possession of his ancestral land with that family. In Chronicles I 2,21 it is stated specifically that paternally he was the son of Chetzron, who in turn was a son of Peretz, son of Yehudah. [My version of the Tur, has this as Chetzron, son of Korach, clearly an error. Ed.] His mother was a daughter of Machir son of Menashe, as we have a verse stating: ואחר בא חצרון אל בת מכיר אבי גלעד ותלד לו את שגוב, ושגוב הוליד את יאיר ויהי לו עשרים ושלוש ערים בארץ גלעד, “after that Chetzron slept with (or married) a daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead. She bore for him Seguv, and Seguv fathered Yair, who had twenty three cities in the land of Gilead.” (Chronicles I 2,22)