“When Pinchas the cohen and the leaders of the community, the heads of the thousands of Isra’el who were with him, heard what the descendants of Re’uven, the descendants of Gad and the descendants of M’nasheh said, it satisfied them.”-Joshua 22:30
So the question we need to ask ourselves is…
…what’s the big deal if the 2 1/2 tribes in the Transjordan decided to build an altar and sacrifice on it?
I mean they had zero intention of sacrificing to another god in the first place.
So who cares, right?
Well homies, it is a big deal because the Torah makes a big deal out of it.
And this is really something the institutional church has yet to come to terms with because they’ve relegated the Torah to the trash bin and feel like they can pretty much do anything they want including the desecrating the Sabbath and eating all manner of unclean food as long as they’ve accepted “Jesus” and “looooove” the Lord.
Here’s what the Torah makes clear on this topic.
FIRST, sacrifices were to be performed ONLY at the Great Altar at the Tabernacle and nowhere else.
SECOND, only the Lord’s chosen Levitical priests were to conduct these sacrifices.
THIRD, the actual location of the Tabernacle and thus by default the altar was to be at a place that God chose and that chosen place at this time was Shiloh.
Keep in mind, the above are just the main commandments concerning this matter.
However, there are actually a ton more connected commandments that make it clear it’s a horrible offense to sacrifice on any other altar beside God’s Great Altar or use any other procedures besides what the Lord has ordained.
Again, one could say this is the whole problem with mankind and every other religion besides the true Messianic faith in existence today.
Everyone is trying to do things their own way and that just ain’t gonna fly with God folks.
He has already made it crystal clear what His Way is in His Word.
The response of the leaders of the 2 1/2 tribes is sincere, honest and completely transparent.
They make it clear that the only reason they constructed the altar in the first place is because they were afraid that once they left Promised Land territory and returned to their homes on the east side of the Jordan River, they’d be forgotten and would no longer be considered as part of God’s chosen people.
And their worst nightmare was that as the time passed and their children and grandchildren came and went, the Israelites now living inside the Promised Land would deny that Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had even helped them in conquering Canaan in the first place.
This would mean the 2 1/2 tribes were no longer a part of Israel or even worshipped the same God.
That’s why the representatives of Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh went out of their way to make it clear they would NOT be performing sacrifices on the altar they had built it but rather its purpose would be to serve as a memorial so to speak.
It would be a standing monument of their loyalty to Hashem, the one and only true God of Israel.
Fortunately, this explanation is accepted by Pinchas and his delegation and war is avoided.
Boy, that was a close call.
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