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Context No. 1460 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 32:14-19: in context

14“Behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ place, an increase of sinful men, to increase the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel. 15For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all these people.” 16They came near to him, and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones; 17but we ourselves will be ready armed to go before the children of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. Our little ones shall dwell in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. 18We will not return to our houses until the children of Israel have all received their inheritance. 19For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan eastward.”

The tribes of Reuben and Gad, who own much livestock, ask to settle in the good grazing land east of the Jordan rather than crossing into the promised land with the rest of Israel. Moses fears they mean to shirk the coming war and leave their brothers to fight alone, discouraging the whole nation as the spies once did. But the two tribes answer with a pledge: we will build folds for our flocks and cities for our children here, but we ourselves will go armed ahead of our brothers, and we will not return to our own houses until every tribe of Israel has received its inheritance.

The heart of their pledge is a refusal to settle into their own blessing while their brothers still lacked theirs. Reuben and Gad had found their portion; the land east of the Jordan suited them, and they could have taken it, settled down, and let the rest of Israel go on to fight for the land beyond. But they would not do that. We will not return to our houses, they promised, until the children of Israel have all received their inheritance. They bound themselves to keep fighting for their brothers' portion before enjoying their own, to leave their own comfortable settlement and go armed at the front until every tribe was provided for. There is a fine example of solidarity in that, a refusal to be content in one's own blessing while others still lack. It would have been easy to reason that they had theirs, that the rest was not their concern, that having secured their own inheritance they could rest. Instead they held that no one should settle into his own portion while his brothers are still without theirs. This is a searching pattern for how we hold our own blessings. It is tempting, once we ourselves are provided for, secure, comfortable, to settle down and regard the needs of others as no longer our concern. Reuben and Gad refused that. They would not rest in their own inheritance until the whole community had received its own; their blessing did not release them from their brothers, it committed them to fight until all were blessed.

Once I have my own portion, secure and comfortable, do I settle down and treat the needs of others as no longer my concern, or will I, like Reuben and Gad, refuse to rest in my own blessing until my brothers have also received theirs?

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