Septuagint: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 32

This is a passage from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, corresponding to Numbers chapter 32. It narrates the negotiation between Moses and the tribes of Reuben and Gad (later joined by half the tribe of Manasseh), who request to settle in the fertile lands east of the Jordan River — Gilead and Jazer — rather than crossing into Canaan with the other Israelites, because the land suits their large herds. Moses initially rebukes them sharply, comparing their reluctance to the faithlessness of their ancestors who were sent as scouts from Kadesh-Barnea and discouraged the people from entering the Promised Land, resulting in forty years of wilderness wandering. A conditional agreement is reached: the tribes may have the Transjordanian lands as their inheritance, but only if their armed men cross the Jordan and fight alongside the other tribes until Canaan is fully conquered — failing this, they will be treated as sinners against God. The tribes accept these terms, Moses formally commissions the arrangement before Eleazar and Joshua, and the chapter closes with a list of cities rebuilt and renamed by the Gadites, Reubenites, and Manassites in their new territory. The passage is notable for its legal and diplomatic texture — structured as a covenant negotiation — and for Moses's invocation of collective ancestral guilt as a rhetorical and theological argument against tribal self-interest.

Septuagint: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 32

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