J13-14: How Manasseh Was Split In Half With 1/2 Of The Tribe Living OUTSIDE Of The Promised Land

“Moshe gave an inheritance to the half-tribe of the M’nasheh; it was for the half-tribe of the descendants of M’nasheh by clans. Their territory included Machanayim and all of Bashan — that is, all the kingdom of ‘Og king of Bashan; all the villages of Ya’ir in Bashan, sixty cities; half of Gil‘ad; and ‘Ashtarot and Edre‘i, the cities of the kingdom of ‘Og in Bashan. All this was for the descendants of Makhir the son of M’nasheh, or, rather, for half of the descendants of Makhir, by clans.”-Joshua 13:29-31

Yesterday we talked about the territory the tribes of Reuben and Gad received on the east side of the Jordan River (remember, this is NOT Promised Land territory).

Today, let’s discuss the territory that 1/2 of the tribe of Manasseh received.

I know this can all seem a bit confusing and overwhelming but it needn’t be.

Here’s the deal.

The tribe of Manasseh was a whopping helluva a huge tribe.

So back in the days when Moses was still leading Israel and they had not yet crossed over the Jordan River, many clans who were part of Manasseh liked what they saw when they encountered the territory east of the Jordan River (land that was NOT part of Hashem’s promise).

However, it seemed like an equal amount of the clans inside Manasseh were like…“Yeah, this land East of the Jordan looks nice. But we’ll stick to the original plan to get our inheritance INSIDE the Promised Land instead of here”.

Opinions were literally split about half-half.

About 50% of the Manasseh clans wanted to plant roots in the Transjordan area and the other 50% wanted to move on into the Promised Land.

This was a challenge that could have erupted into big time inner-tribal warfare within the tribe of Manasseh unless an understanding was reached.

Fortunately, an agreed-upon compromise was reached.

And it was a pretty simple solution actually.

Those clans of Manasseh who wanted to make their homes inside the Trans-Jordan were welcome to do so…

…and those who didn’t want to, were allowed to continue on into the land of Canaan.

Regardless of which decision a clan made, their tribal affiliation and tribal identity would remain intact.

It was like a mini-Diaspora happening right here in front of our eyes.

In other words, because of this split, it wasn’t like one of the 1/2 tribes suddenly ceased to be Manasseh and transformed into another tribe.

However, having said all that, power struggles did end up breaking out between east Manasseh and west Manasseh.

And what’s interesting is that when we look at an accurate map, we’ll see that the two Manasseh territories didn’t even border each other.

They were separated from each other by a good distance and this led to some serious political problems in the future.

In the Scriptures, we’ll also get this label of “the 1/2 tribe of Manasseh” which is interesting because obviously there were two 1/2 tribes of Manasseh.

I’m done.