22:19 But if your own land30 is impure,31 cross over to the Lord’s own land,32 where the Lord himself lives,33 and settle down among us.34 But don’t rebel against the Lord or us35 by building for yourselves an altar aside from the altar of the Lord our God.
sn The western tribes here imagine a possible motive for the action of the eastern tribes. T. C. Butler explains the significance of the land’s “impurity”: “East Jordan is impure because it is not Yahweh’s possession. Rather it is simply ‘your possession.’ That means it is land where Yahweh does not live, land which his presence has not sanctified and purified” (Joshua [WBC], 247).
tcHeb “and us to you rebel.” The reading of the MT, the accusative sign with suffix (וְאֹתָנוּ, vé’otanu), is problematic with the verb “rebel” (מָרַד, marad). Many Hebrew mss correctly read the negative particle אַל (’al) for the preposition אֶל (’el, “to”).