And I gave Gilead unto Machir. The son of Manasseh; not to him personally, who cannot be thought to have been living at this time, but to his posterity, to the Machirites; see Numbers 32:40.

I gave Gilead unto Machir--It was only the half of Gilead (Deuteronomy 3:12-13) which was given to the descendants of Machir, who was now dead.

Machir received Gilead (see Numbers 32:40). - In Deuteronomy 3:16 and Deuteronomy 3:17 the possession of the tribes of Reuben and Gad is described more fully according to its boundaries. They received the land of Gilead (to the south of the Jabbok) as far as the brook Arnon, the middle of the valley and its territory. הנּחל תּוך is a more precise definition of ארנן נחל, expressive of the fact that the territory of these tribes was not to reach merely to the northern edge of the Arnon valley, but into the middle of it, viz., to the river Arnon, which flowed through the middle of the valley; and וּגבוּל (and the border) is an explanatory apposition to what goes before, as in Numbers 34:6, signifying, "viz., the border of the Arnon valley as far as the river." On the east, "even unto Jabbok the brook, the (western) border of the Ammonites" (i.e., as far as the upper Jabbok, the Nahr Ammn: see at Numbers 21:24); and on the west "The Arabah (the Ghor: see Deuteronomy 1:1) and the Jordan with territory" (i.e., with its eastern bank), "from Chinnereth" (i.e., the town from which the Sea of Galilee received the name of Sea of Chinnereth: Numbers 34:11; see at Joshua 19:35) "to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea under the slopes of Pisgah (see at Numbers 21:15 and Numbers 27:12) eastward" (i.e., merely the eastern side of the Arabah and Jordan). - In Deuteronomy 3:18-20 Moses reminds them of the conditions upon which he had given the two tribes and a half the land referred to for their inheritance (cf. Numbers 32:20-32).

Gilead - That is, the half part of Gilead. To Machir - That is, unto the children of Machir, son of Manasseh, for Machir was now dead.