To the soldiers - 36,000
To the Lord from the soldiers - 72
To the people - 36,000
To the Levites from the people - 720
Total of asses - 1,000
To the soldiers - 30,500
To the Lord from the soldiers - 61
To the people - 30,500
To the Levites from the people - 610
Total of persons - 32,000
To the soldiers.. 16,000
To the Lord from the soldiers - 32
To the Levites from the people - 320
To the people - 16,000
In this table the booty is equally divided between the people and the soldiers; a five-hundredth part being given to the Lord, and a fiftieth part to the Levites.
Verse 50
We have - brought an oblation for the Lord - So it appears there was a great deal of booty taken which did not come into the general account; and of this the soldiers, of their own will, made a very extensive offering to God, because he had preserved them from falling in battle. That not one man should have been slain is a most extraordinary circumstance, and powerfully marks the peculiar superintendence of God's especial providence. The Midianites must certainly have made some resistance; but that was ineffectual, because it was against the Lord. When any nation undertakes a crusade against those whom they are pleased to call the Lord's enemies, let them bring from the contest this proof of their Divine mission, viz., that not one man of them is either lost or missing; and then, and not till then, shall we believe that God hath sent them.
To make an atonement for our souls - That is, to make an acknowledgment to God for the preservation of their lives. The gold offered on this occasion amounted to 16,750 shekels, equal to 37,869, 16s. 5d. of our money. See the note on [Exo 25:39], where the true value of the shekel is given, and a rule laid down to reduce it to English money.
Introduction
The Reubenites and Gadites request Moses to give them their inheritance on this side of Jordan, [Num 32:1-5]. Moses expostulates with and reproves them, [Num 32:6-15]. They explain themselves, and propose conditions, with which Moses is satisfied - they are to build cities for their wives and children, and folds for their cattle, and go ever Jordan armed with the other tribes, and fight against their enemies till the land is subdued; after which they are to return, [Num 32:16-27]. Moses proposes the business to Eleazar, Joshua, and the elders, [Num 32:28-30]. The Gadites and Reubenites promise a faithful observance of the conditions, [Num 32:31], [Num 32:32]; on which Moses assigns to them, and the half tribe of Manasseh, the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, [Num 32:33]. The cities built by the Gadites, [Num 32:34-36]. The cities built by the Reubenites, [Num 32:37], [Num 32:38]. The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, expel the Amorites from Gilead, [Num 32:39], which Moses grants to them, [Num 32:40]. Jair, the son of Manasseh, takes the small towns of Gilead, [Num 32:41]. And Nobah takes Kenath and its villages, [Num 32:42].
Verse 3
Ataroth, and Dibon, etc. - The places mentioned here belonged to Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, which being conquered by the Israelites, constituted ever after a part of their territories, [Num 32:33].
Verse 5
Let this land be given unto thy servants - Because it was good for pasturage, and they had many flocks, [Num 32:1].
Verse 12
Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite - It was Jephunneh that was the Kenezite, and not Caleb. Kenaz was probably the father of Jephunneh.
Verse 16
We will build - cities for our little ones - It was impossible for these, numerous as they might be, to build cities and fortify them for the defense of their families in their absence. Calmet supposes they meant no more than repairing the cities of the Amorites which they had lately taken; which work might have been very easily accomplished in the time which they spent on this side of Jordan, before they went over with their brethren, to put them in possession of the land.
Verse 17
Because of the inhabitants of the land - These were the Ammonites, Moabites, Idumeans, and the remains of the Midianites and Amorites. But could the women and children even keep the defenced cities, when placed in them? This certainly cannot be supposed possible. Many of the men of war must of course stay behind. In the last census, Numbers 26, the tribe of Reuben consisted of 43,730 men; the tribe of Gad, 40,500; the tribe of Manasseh, 52,700; the half of which is 26,350. Add this to the sum of the other two tribes, and the amount is 110,580. Now from [Jos 4:13] we learn that of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half of the tribe of Manasseh, only 40,000 armed men passed over Jordan to assist their brethren in the reduction of the land: consequently the number of 70,580 men were left behind for the defense of the women, the children, and the flocks. This was more than sufficient to defend them against a people already panic struck by their late discomfitures and reverses.
Verse 34
The children of Gad built - Aroer - This was situated on the river Arnon, [Deu 2:36]; [2Kgs 10:33]. It was formerly inhabited by the Emim, a warlike and perhaps gigantic people. They were expelled by the Moabites; the Moabites by the Amorites; and the Amorites by the Israelites. The Gadites then possessed it till the captivity of their tribe, with that of Reuben and the half of the tribe of Manasseh, by the Assyrians, [2Kgs 15:29], after which the Moabites appear to have repossessed it, as they seem to have occupied it in the days of Jeremiah, [Jer 48:15-20].
Verse 38
And Nebo - their names being changed - That is, Those who conquered the cities called them after their own names. Thus the city Kenath, being conquered by Nobah, was called after his name, [Num 32:42].
Verse 41
Havoth-jair - That is, the villages or habitations of Jair; and thus they should have been translated. As these two tribes and a half were the first, says Ainsworth, who had their inheritance assigned to them in the promised land, so they were the first of all Israel that were carried captive out of their own land, because of their sins. "For they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after other gods. And God delivered them into the hands of Pul and Tiglath-Pilneser, kings of Assyria, and they brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and Gozan, unto this day." See [1Chr 5:25], [1Chr 5:26].
Introduction
The journeyings of the Israelites written out by Moses, according to the commandment of the Lord, [Num 33:1], [Num 33:2]. They depart from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the day after the passover, the first-born of the Egyptians having been slain, [Num 33:3], [Num 33:4]. Their forty-two stations enumerated, vv. 5-49. They are authorized to expel all the former inhabitants, and destroy all remnants of idolatry, [Num 33:50-53]. The land is to be divided by lot, [Num 33:54]. Should they not drive out the former inhabitants, they shall be to them as pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, [Num 33:55]. And if not obedient, God will deal with them as he has purposed to do with the Canaanites, [Num 33:56].
Verse 2
And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys - We may consider the whole book of Numbers as a diary, and indeed the first book of travels ever published. Dr. Shaw, Dr. Pococke, and several others, have endeavored to mark out the route of the Israelites, through this great, dreary, and trackless desert, and have ascertained many of the stages here described. Indeed there are sufficient evidences of this important journey still remaining, for the descriptions of many are so particular that the places are readily ascertained by them; but this is not the case with all. Israel was the Church of God in the wilderness, and its unsettled, wandering state under Moses may point out the unsettled state of religion under the law. Their being brought, after the death of Moses, into the promised rest by Joshua, may point out the establishment, fixedness, and certainty of that salvation provided by Jesus Christ, of whom Joshua, in name and conduct, was a remarkable type. Mr. Ainsworth imagines that the forty-two stations here enumerated, through which the Israelites were brought to the verge of the promised land, and afterwards taken over Jordan into the rest which God had promised, point out the forty-two generations from Abraham unto Christ, through whom the Savior of the world came, by whose blood we have an entrance into the holiest, and enjoy the inheritance among the saints in light. And Mr. Bromley, in his Way to the Sabbath of Rest, considers each name and place as descriptive of the spiritual state through which a soul passes in its way to the kingdom of God. But in cases of this kind fancy has much more to do than judgment.
Verse 3
From Rameses - This appears to have been the metropolis of the land of Goshen, and the place of rendezvous whence the whole Israelitish nation set out on their journey to the promised land; and is supposed to be the same as Cairo. See the notes on [Exo 12:37].
Here Follow the Forty-Two Stations
Station 1.