“So Moshe gave the descendants of Gad and of Re’uven, and also to the half-tribe of M’nasheh the son of Yosef, the kingdom of Sichon king of the Emori and the kingdom of ‘Og king of Bashan — the country and its cities within its borders, along with their surrounding towns.”-Numbers 32:33
When reading the last few verses of Numbers 32, there is one other significant detail that one could easily pass over.
Notice it says that one half of MANASSEH, the largest Israelite tribe, also wanted to stay in the Transjordan region.
Their immediate reasons for wanting to do so were likely the same as that of Reuben and Gad, namely, having access to some of the most fertile pastureland in the area.
However, like many realities in life, there’s a lot more to people’s actions than meets the eye.
Even though we’re given zero details about what may have happened, for a tribe to choose to split itself up in such a manner meant there was some serious political turmoil brewing within this Tribe.
There was probably a vicious power struggle going on that had two leaders fighting each other to become the head or NASI (prince) of the tribe and it was decided that splitting the tribe in half would allow for the situation to be resolved in a peaceful manner.
That way each man vying for the crown would essentially get to be the top dog over their own territory.
Now what we’re going to notice moving forward is that from here on out the Bible is going to collectively refer to Reuben, Gad and the 1/2 Tribe of Manasseh as the “2 1/2 Tribes“.
Remember this point.
In Scripture, whenever you come across the phrase the “2 1/2 Tribes“, it is referring to those tribes (Reuben, Gad, and 1/2 of Manasseh) that decided to stay on the east side of the Jordan River.
The remaining tribes along with the other half of the tribe of Manasseh went on to conquer the land of Canaan.
Take a look at the map above and you’ll see that Reuben settled directly on the east bank of the Dead Sea.
Gad resided in the area east of the Jordan River in the area between the southern end of the Sea of Galilee and the northern tip of the Dead Sea.
Finally, sitting pretty at the very top was the 1/2 Tribe of Manasseh.
Manasseh’s territory started at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee and stretched northward reaching close proximity to Mount Hermon.
Understand that the map above represents how the 2 1/2 tribes were laid out after a few scores of years had passed.
Of course, not everything took place right away and even after the 2 1/2 tribes were comfortably settled, territorial boundaries fluctuated over time due to political uprisings and battles, etcetera.
But does the text actually say that Manasseh asked to remain in the Transjordan? Or did Moses ‘assign’ them to that portion?