And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad according to their families.

And Moses gave to the tribe of Gad and to his children by their kindreds a possession, of which this is the division.

And Moses giveth to the tribe of Gad, to the sons of Gad, for their families;

Deditque Moses tribui Gad, filiis Gad per familias suas.

And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, etc The observation made above applies also to the tribe of Gad, namely, that their legitimate boundaries were carefully defined in order to prevent disputes as to their possession. Meanwhile God is extolled for his liberality in having expelled nations of great celebrity, and substituted them in their stead. This is expressed more clearly in regard to the half tribe of Manasseh, when sixty cities are enumerated as included in their inheritance. Hence, too, it is manifest that Moses was not munificent through mistake, because it was well known to God how many cities he was giving them out of his boundless liberality. In a short clause the tribe of Levi is again excluded, that the Levites might not be able at some future period to pretend that the grant which the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh had obtained without the casting of lots, belonged in common to them also; for they are expressly forbidden to share with their brethren. This made it easy for them to interpret shrewdly for their advantage, that they were entitled to share with others. Here, however, it is not the sacrifices, as a little before, but God Himself that is said to be their inheritance; if they are not satisfied with it, they only convict themselves of excessive pride and insufferable fastidiousness. [1]

Footnotes

1 - The thirty-third verse is entirely omitted by the Septuagint. -- Ed.

And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad,.... On the other side Jordan, as he did to Reuben:
even unto the children of Gad, according to their families: according to the number and largeness of them, dividing to each their part and portion.

Inheritance of the tribe of Gad. - This tribe received Jazer (probably es Szyr: see at Numbers 21:32) and "all the towns of Gilead," i.e., of the southern half of Gilead, which belonged to the kingdom of Sihon; for the northern half, which belonged to the kingdom of Og, was given to the Manassites (Joshua 13:31), "and the half of the land of the sons of Ammon, to Aror before Rabbah," i.e., that portion of the land of the Ammonites between the Arnon and the Jabbok, which the Amorites under Sihon had taken from the Ammonites, namely, the land on the east of Gilead, on the western side of the upper Jabbok (Nahr Ammn: Deuteronomy 2:37; Deuteronomy 3:16; cf. Judges 11:13); for the land of the Ammonites, i.e., the land which they still held in the time of Moses, on the eastern side of Nahr Ammn, the Israelites were not allowed to attack (Deuteronomy 2:19). Aror before Rabbah, i.e., Ammn (see Deuteronomy 3:11), is Aror of Gad, and must be distinguished from Aror of Reuben on the Arnon (Joshua 13:16). It is only mentioned again in Judges 11:33 and 2-Samuel 24:5, and was situated, according to 2 Sam., in the valley of Gad, that is to say, in a wady or valley through which Gesenius supposes an arm of the Jabbok to have flowed, and Thenius the Jabbok itself, though neither of them has sufficient ground for his conjecture. It is also not to be identified with the ruin of Ayra to the south-west of Szalt, as this is not in a wady at all; but in all probability it is to be sought for to the north-east of Rabbah, in the Wady Nahr Ammn, on the side of the Kalat Zerka Gadda, the situation of which suits this verse and Judges 11:33. - In Joshua 13:26 the extent of the territory of Gad is first of all described from north to south: viz., from Heshbon (see Joshua 13:17) to Ramath-mizpeh, or Ramoth in Gilead (Joshua 20:8), probably on the site of the present Szalt (see at Deuteronomy 4:43), "and Betonim," probably the ruin of Batneh, on the mountains which bound the Ghor towards the east between the Wady Shaib and Wady Ajlun, in the same latitude as Szalt (V. de Velde, Mem. p. 298); and then, secondly, the northern boundary is described from west to east, "from Mahanaim to the territory of Lidbir." Mahanaim (double-camp: Genesis 32:2), which was given up by Gad to the Levites (Joshua 21:30), in which Ishbosheth was proclaimed king (2-Samuel 2:8-9), and to which David fled from Absalom (2-Samuel 17:24, 2-Samuel 17:27; 1-Kings 2:8), is not to be sought for, as Knobel supposes, in the ruins of Meysera, to the south of Jabbok, four hours and a half from Szalt, but was on the north of the Jabbok, since Jacob did not cross the ford of the Jabbok till after the angel had appeared to him at Mahanaim (Genesis 32:3, Genesis 32:23). It was in or by the valley of the Jordan (according to 2-Samuel 18:23-24), and has probably been preserved in the ruins of Mahneh, the situation of which, however, has not yet been determined (see at Genesis 32:3). Lidbir is quite unknown; the lamed, however, is not to be taken as a prefix, but forms part of the word. J. D. Michaelis and Knobel suppose it to be the same as Lo-debar in 2-Samuel 9:4-5; 2-Samuel 17:27, a place from which provisions were brought to David at Mahanaim on his flight from Absalom, and which is to be sought for on the east of Mahanaim.