Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
Joshua 13:23
And the border of the children of Reuben was Jordan, and the border thereof. This
was the inheritance of the children of Reuben after their families, the cities and the
villages thereof.
"And (this) was the boundary of the sons of Reuben, the Jordan and its territory,"
i.e., the Jordan, or rather land adjoining it. The meaning is, that the territory of
Reuben, viz., with the places mentioned last (v. 20), reached to the territory of the
Jordan; for so far as the principal part was concerned, it was on the east of the Dead
Sea, as it only reached from the Arnon to Heshbon, i.e., up to the latitude of the
northern extremity of the Dead Sea. "The towns and their villages." chaatseer
(OT:2691), farm premises, used, as in Lev 25:31, to denote places not enclosed by a
wall.
Joshua 13:24-26
And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad
according to their families.
Inheritance of the tribe of Gad. - This tribe received Jaëzer (probably es Szyr: see at
Num 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 (v. 31), "and the half of the land of the
sons of Ammon, to Aroër 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 Ammân: Deut 2:37; 3:16; cf. Judg 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 Ammân, the Israelites were not allowed to attack (Deut 2:19).
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