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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast, The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Okay, chapter 32, verse 1. Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle. And they saw the land of Jaser and the land of Gilead, and they saw the place was a place for cattle. So the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad came and spoke to Moses, to Eliezer the priest, and to the rulers of the congregation, saying, Adorot, Debon, Jaser, Nimra, Heshbon, Elialah, Shabam, Nebo, and Bayon. The country the Lord delivered over to the children of Israel is a land appropriate for feeding cattle, and your servants have cattle. You can see where this argument is going. Therefore, they said, if we have found grace in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not make us cross over the Jordan. So remember, they had come and they had defeated Og, king of Bashan, Sihon, king of the Amorites. More about them when we get into Deuteronomy and at Christmastime in Matins. um but so they've they've there was this chunk remember of moab which is in the transjordan this sort of northern chunk of moab that had been taken by those two kings and the israelites came and took out those two kings and so they took that land and that's what started the whole problem with balak king of moab because balak the king of moab was like number one i'm kind of worried the Israelites are going to come after me next. And number two, I kind of like that land back myself. Thank you very much that you've liberated. But so nothing has been determined sort of in terms of what they're going to do because this isn't part of the Canaan is on the other side of the Jordan that they're getting ready to take. That's the land that was promised to them by God, not this peace per se, not this other peace on the other side of the Jordan per se was not promise to israel this other anyway okay let the reader let the listener understand no so you know elders of tribes of ruben and gad like man we're hauling a lot of cattle here through the wilderness you know we got we got some nice land here already i mean are we just going to abandon it? Like, uh, well, you know, it's good, good for grazing. Why, why don't we just, uh, you know, catch you guys later? Uh, other 10 of you can head over there across the Jordan and we'll, we'll just kind of hang out here. Right. How about that? Then Moses said to the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben, your brothers go to war and shall you sit here? that's pretty blunt they're ready to go to battle and you're just going to hang out here now why do you pervert the minds

of the children of Israel from crossing over crossing over to the land that the Lord gives to them did not your fathers acted this way when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land they went up to the valley of Eshcol and spied out the land and they turned aside the heart of the children of Israel so they would not enter the land the Lord gave them So the Lord was very angry that day and swore an oath, saying, Surely these men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, and who know good and evil, shall not see the land I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they did not follow after me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who separated himself, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they followed after the Lord. So the Lord was very angry with Israel, and he made them wander in the desert 40 years until all the generation that did evil before the Lord was utterly destroyed. Behold, you rose up in your father's place, a body of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel, for you will turn away from him by again leaving him in the desert, and you will act lawlessly against the entire congregation. So that's a no. so no that was the long answer the short answer was no no so Moses says right so everybody else is going to go fight you're just going to chill out here with your cows grazing your cows but also hey you remember like when we sent the spies like you may not remember because people who remember are mostly dead but uh that's there was a spy from Reuben for the tribe of reuben there's one for me

tribe. There was a spy for the tribe of Gad. And you remember what they did? They went and they saw the land and then they came back to the camp and said, hey, we shouldn't go into the land. That sounds a lot like what you're doing right now. And do you remember what happened when they did that? God got mad and we spent 40 years in the desert and everybody died, including the two of them. Right? And now you're doing the same thing again. Right? Not a smart move, fellas. Now you'd think they might slink off. But no. The conversation continues. They came to Moses and said, we will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our children. Now that is a great translation. We're going to build sheepfolds for our cattle. Just leaving that there. Okay. And cities for our children. But we will arm ourselves as the advance guard before the sons of Israel until we bring them to their own place, and our children will dwell in the fortified cities because of the land's inhabitants. let us not return to our homes until each of the sons of Israel should be distributed to his inheritance therefore let us not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond because we are receiving in full our portions on this eastern side of the Jordan they have a counter proposal they're like okay we still like these digs over here right but you have a point about everyone else going to war except us so we'll agree will settle all of our women and children here. We'll leave all of our cattle and herds and flocks here. But our military age men will not only go with you across the Jordan, but they'll lead. You can put them in the front row, right? They'll lead in the Jordan and they will go with you. And until you're done, once everybody, you're done fighting in Canaan and everybody is receiving their portion, They'll go home to their families here on this side of the Jordan. And we won't get any land on that side because we've already got this land. So they're haggling, right? But this is a better proposal, right? This is a better proposal. Then Moses said to them, if you do according to this word, if you arm yourselves before the Lord for the war, and all your armed men cross over the Jordan before the Lord, until his enemy is destroyed before his face and the land is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be blameless before the Lord and before Israel. And this land shall be your possession before the Lord. But if you should not do so, you shall be guilty before the Lord

and you will know your sin when evils overtake you. So you shall build cities for yourselves and for your children and walled enclosures for your cattle and do what proceeded out of your mouth. So this is, okay, I accept this proposal, assuming you follow through on it, right? They say, if you follow through on it, great, but if you, there's a warning here, if you don't follow through on it, right, you know how God's wrath works now from experience. Don't expect it to be good if you don't follow through on the promises you're making right now. Then the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben spoke to Moses, saying, Your servants will do as our Lord commands. Our children, our wives, and all our cattle will be there in the cities of Gilead. But your servants will cross over, all armed and arrayed for battle before the Lord, into the war in the manner our Lord says. So Moses appointed for them Eliezer the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and rulers of families in the tribes of Israel. again Moses said to them if the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben cross over the Jordan with you every man armed for war before the Lord and you subdue the land before you then you shall give them the land of Gilead as a possession but if they do not cross over with you armed for war you shall carry across their children their wives and their cattle before you into the land of Canaan okay so Moses is going to be dead right Moses is about to go to his people, right? So he gets the other leaders. These are the high priests, gets the other leaders and says, okay, this is the deal we made. They're going to do this. They're going to leave their families, their herds, and their flocks here, and they're going to go into war, right? And if they do that, great. If they don't do that, then you come back here and you get those flocks and those herds and they're yours now, right? And you take them back to your...

to your land, right? And they inherit nothing. Basically, they inherit nothing if they don't follow through. Then the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben answered, saying, so they said this in front of them. They heard this, right? That this is what happens if they don't. Sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben answered, saying, whatever our Lord says to your servants, so we will do. We will cross over our arm before the Lord into the land of Canaan, but you shall give us our possession on the other side of the Jordan. So Moses gave to the sons of Gad, the sons of Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph. They jumped in there too, made the same deal. The kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, the land and its cities with its borders, the cities of the surrounding country. Then the sons of Gad built Dibbon, Adarot, Aror, Shofan, and Jazer, which they raised up, along with Beit Nimra and Beit Haran, fortified cities and walled enclosures for sheep. The sons of Reuben built Heshbon, Elialah, Kirjataim, and Baal Meon. Yeah, first sight of trouble, right? First sight of trouble. Encircled with walls and Shibma, and they named the cities they built after their names. second sign of trouble they're naming cities after themselves and famous people from their clan whenever so it's very common we saw this already in genesis we're going to keep seeing it one of the ways that the bible is going to say that someone has grown arrogant and proud in an overweening way is they start naming things after themselves. Right. So think about Cain's son naming a city after himself. Think about, like this is never a good example. Right. Pharaoh naming a city after himself.

Would the contrast be naming it after like an action of God?

Right. Right. So Jacob, for example, names the place Bethel. Right. Bait El, the house of God, because God appeared to him there. Right. So they're not naming things after themselves. So this is going to continue. Omri, when he buys the hill to build the capital for the northern kingdom. Right. Samaria, it's named after his son, Semer. Right. And so this is a constant thing. I'm not going to make any contemporary analogies about people naming things after themselves. You can fill that in yourself. It was, it is not a good, I'll just say it's not a good thing biblically to turn yourself into a brand. We'll just leave it at that. And then the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it and destroyed the Amorites dwelling in it. So apparently there's still some lingering Amorite giants around who he took care of. So Moses gave Gilead to Makir, the son of Manasseh, and he dwelt there. Also Jair, the son of Manasseh, went and took their farming villages and named them Havot Jair. Notice something there. Jair took the villages and named them Havot Jair. The possessions of... mine yes mine where you see a trend here then noba went and took cadat and its villages and he named them noba after his own name yeah now remember of course when it says son of like so it doesn't be literally like manassas son because like manassas lived centuries before right that just means descendant, right? That that's the, that's the clan, right? That from Manasseh, that it's not just one guy going and taking a city. That'd be impressive. One guy going and taking a city by himself, but this is talking about that whole clan.

Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on The Whole Council of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com