“Of the land that we took over at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer by the Arnon Gorge, including half the hill country of Gilead, together with its towns.The rest of Gilead and also all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh.”-Deuteronomy 3:12-13
We are continuing to slog through Deuteronomy 3.
From verse 3, Moses recalls what happened when the tribes of Reuben, Gad and one-half of Manasseh beseeched Moses to allow them to NOT enter into the Promised Land with their fellow Israelite brothers.
They decided they wanted to stay in Sihon instead because of its vast and fertile pasturelands.
The 2 1/2 tribes’ decision was understandable given the vast amounts goats and sheep they possessed.
Let’s take a look at verse 14.
“Ya’ir the son of M’nasheh took all the region of Argov, as far as the border with the G’shuri and the Ma‘akhati; he named this whole area, including Bashan, after himself — it remains Havot-Ya’ir to this day. I gave Gil‘ad to Machir;“
We’re told that a district known as Argos was given to JAIR son of Manasseh and the area known as Gilead was given to MAKHIR who was another son of Manasseh.
Now here’s the thing and you would probably never know this unless somebody pointed it out to you.
JAIR and MAKHIR here are NOT referring to specific men.
Nope…these two names are referring to the clans who were the descendants of these two men.
That’s right…JAIR and MAKHIR were the two most prominent and powerful clans in the tribe of Manasseh who decided the heck with entering into the Promised Land of Canaan.
“Let’s stay in the Transjordan region so we’ll have a place for our animals to graze!” was their way of thinking.
So understand it was all the other clans of Manasseh besides JAIR and MAKHIR who decided to cross the Jordan with the other tribes of Israel.
This brings to mind another important point that would be good to bring up now.
I’m talking about the true Biblical meaning of the word “son”.
In Hebrew, the word for “son” is BEN.
However, in the Bible, the word “son” doesn’t always mean what we would normally think it means.
In Scripture, a son can refer to a direct male offspring such as Solomon son of David.
But more often than not, it can also refer to any male member of a given clan…
…or it can refer to a grandchild.
In the case here of Jair Ben Manasseh, it is referring to a male clan member who belongs to the Tribe of Manasseh.
Got it?
Now don’t start rolling your eyes because you think I’m paying an inordinate amount of attention to details that nobody would care about.
If we’re going to be true students of Scripture and separate ourselves from the 99% of the church-going masses (including most pastors) whose knowledge of the Scripture is restricted to a superficial understanding of the New Testament, these are important details we’ve just got to understand.
No shortcuts man.
Finally, let’s take a look at verse 17.
“the ‘Aravah too, the Yarden being its border, from Kinneret to the Sea of the ‘Aravah, the Dead Sea, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah to the east.”
Just a reminder but the name KINNERET is the other and much more ancient name for the Sea of Galilee.
This name is actually still in use today.
I’m done.
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