“(To the one half-tribe of M’nasheh, Moshe had given an inheritance in Bashan; but to the other half, Y’hoshua gave one among their kinsmen on the west side of the Yarden.) When Y’hoshua sent them away to their tents he blessed them, saying, “Return with great riches to your tents — with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, iron and with great quantities of clothing; share the spoil of your enemies with your kinsmen.”-Joshua 22:2-8
There’s one really important thing I want you to notice going down during the withdrawal ceremony of the 2 1/2 tribes.
A good majority of the words being imparted to them comes from Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy, the very chapter that contains the SHEMA:
“Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”.
The key thing here is that even though Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh are from this point onwards going to be dwelling outside of the promised land, they are still called on to unceasingly follow…
…the Torah of Moses and keep God’s commands with all of their hearts, souls and minds.
And speaking of Manasseh, ain’t that little footnote (copied and pasted above) embedded in verse 7 interesting?
It’s this little reminder telling us that…hey, Manasseh actually held 2 different portions of land completely separated from each other, one on the East bank of the Jordan River and one on the West Bank.
We shouldn’t treat this as some irrelevant footnote that we carelessly gloss over.
In future lessons, the fact that the tribe of Manasseh held 2 pieces of real estate, one inside the Promised Land and one outside of it is gonna be very important.
Why?
Well, I’m not gonna get into it now but I’ll give you a little hint.
Remember how a couple of articles back I told you that Joshua 22 deals with some really important theological questions and that one of them is “What is the true definition of who are God’s people?“
Well, Manasseh’s double real estate holdings is gonna play a key part in answering that question but as I just said we’re not gonna get into that here.
Onward.
At the closing of this decommissioning ceremony, Joshua goes out of his way to tell the 2 1/2 tribes to not forget to take with them the spoils of war they won during the holy war in Canaan.
This included a whole bunch of goodies such as livestock, a variety of precious metals and finely woven clothing.
Recall it was a normal custom in the Biblical era that every soldier was allowed to loot the valuable items from the conquered enemy as part of his paycheck so to speak.
Based on everything I know about HAREM and how during a holy war, God’s soldiers are NOT to touch enemy property (remember Achan at the city of Ai), I’m assuming these items being handed over to the 2 1/2 tribes were given the okay from HASHEM to keep them.
Nevertheless, I find it interesting how Joshua goes out of his way to make it clear to the 9 1/2 tribes who will be making their homes inside the Promised Land that it’s fine and dandy for Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh to take their portion of the spoils of war home with them.
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