Numbers 32:1–19

Gad and Reuben Inherit Gilead

32The descendants^a of Reuben and the descendants^b of Gad had a very large number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold it was a place for livestock. ²The descendants^c of Gad and the descendants^d of Reuben came, and they said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, saying, ³“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon, ⁴the land that Yahweh struck before the community of Israel, is a land of livestock, and your servants have livestock.” ⁵They said, “If we have found favor in your sight,^e let this land be given to your servants as property; do not lead us across the Jordan.”

⁶But Moses said to the descendants^f of Gad and to the descendants^g of Reuben, “Will your brothers go to war while you yourselves live here? ⁷Why are you discouraging the hearts of the Israelites^h from crossing into the land that Yahweh gave to them? ⁸This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land. ⁹When they went up to the valleyⁱ of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the Israelites^j so that they did not come to the land that Yahweh gave to them. ¹⁰So Yahweh’s anger burned^k on that day, and he swore an oath, saying, ¹¹‘The men who went up from Egypt, from those twenty years old^l and above, will not see the land that I swore with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they have not wholly followed me, ¹²except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, because they followed Yahweh wholly.’ ¹³And Yahweh became angry,^m and he made them wander in the desert forty years until the entire generation who did evil in the sight of Yahwehⁿ had died.^{o 14}Behold, you stand in the place of your fathers, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more Yahweh’s fierce anger^p against Israel. ¹⁵If you turn from following him, he will again abandon them^q in the wilderness, and you would have destroyed all these people.”

¹⁶They came near to him and said, “We will build sheep pens here for the flock of our livestock and cities for our little children; ¹⁷but we ourselves will become armed and ready before the Israelites^r until we have brought them to their place, and our little children will live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. ¹⁸We will not return to our houses until the Israelites^s each obtain their^t inheritance for themselves. ¹⁹For we will not take possession with them from across the Jordan and beyond because our inheritance has come to us from across the Jordan to the east.”