XXXII The request of Reuben and Gad for an inheritance on this side Jordan, ver. 1-5. Moses's misconstruction of it, ver. 6-15. Their explication of it, ver. 16-19. The grant of their petition, ver. 20-42.

Verse 1. Jazer - A city and country of the Amorites; Gilead - A mountainous country, famous for pasturage

Verse 6. Ye sit here - In ease and peace, while your brethren are engaged in a bloody war.

Verse 12. The Kenezite - So called from Kenaz, his grand-father.

Verse 15. All this people - Who being moved by your counsel and example, will refuse to go over Jordan.

Verse 17. We ourselves - Either all, or as many as shall be thought necessary, leaving only so many as may be necessary to provide for the sustenance and defense of our wives and children here.

Verse 20. Before the Lord - Before the ark, which was the token of God's presence. He alludes either to the order of the tribes in their march, whereby Reuben and Gad marched immediately before the ark, or to the manner of their passage over Jordan, wherein the ark went first into Jordan, and stood there while all the tribes marched over Jordan by and before it, and these amongst the rest, as is expressly noted in these very words, that they passed over before the Lord, Josh. iv, 13.

Verse 22. Before the Lord - By his presence and gracious and powerful assistance.

Verse 23. Your sin - The punishment of your sin. Sin will certainly find out the sinner sooner or later. It concerns us therefore to find our sins out, that we may repent of them and forsake them, lest our sins find us out, to our confusion and destruction.

Verse 30. They shall have possession - They shall forfeit their possessions in Gilead, and be constrained to go over Jordan, and to seek possessions there among their brethren.

Verse 31. As the Lord hath said - Either at this time by thy mouth: or formerly, where he commanded us, as well as our brethren to go into Canaan and possess it.

Verse 34. Built - Repaired and fortified. For they neither had need nor leisure as yet to do more, the old cities not being burnt and ruined, as divers in Canaan were.

Verse 38. Their names changed - Either because conquerers of places used to do so: or because the names of other Gods (which Nebo and Baal-meon unquestionably were) were not to be mentioned, Exod. xxiii, 13.

Verse 40. Machir - Not to Machir himself, who doubtless was long since dead, but the family or posterity of Machir.