On Mutual Support

On Mutual Support
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone
NUMBERS 32:1- 42


1Now the Reubenites and the Gadites had much livestock, very extensive, and they looked at the country of Jazer and Gilead: this was a place for cattle. 2So the Gadites and Reubenites came and said to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the community leaders, 3“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealah, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon, 4the country Yahweh has struck down before the Israelite community, is cattle country, and your servants have cattle.” 5So they said, “If we find favor in your eyes, may this country be given to your servants as a holding. Do not make us cross the Jordan.” 6Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Are your brothers to go to battle while you settle here? 7Why would you deflect the heart of the Israelites from crossing into the country Yahweh has given them? 8Your fathers did this when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to look at the country. 9They went up to the Eshcol wash and looked at the country but deflected the heart of the Israelites so that they would not go into the country Yahweh had given them. 10Then Yahweh’s anger flared and he swore, 11‘If the people who came up from Egypt, twenty years and upward, see the country I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they did not wholly follow after me, 12except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, because they wholly followed after Yahweh. . . .’ 13Yahweh’s anger flared at Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years until the whole generation that did wrong in Yahweh’s eyes was finished. 14Now. You have arisen in place of your fathers as a brood of sinners to add further to the flaring of Yahweh’s anger toward Israel. 15If you turn from following him and he once again leaves you in the wilderness, you will destroy this entire people.” 16They came to him and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock and cities for our young people 17but we ourselves will equip ourselves as shock troops ahead of the Israelites until we have enabled them to get to their place, while our young people live in the fortified cities, because of the people who live in the country.”

[Moses agrees with this plan, which means Gad and Reuben, and also half of Manasseh, will settle east of the Jordan in the country already accidentally captured from the Amorites.]


As I write, my denomination, the Episcopal or Anglican Church, is in a mess over its stance toward same-sex marriage. While that is itself a tricky issue, the situation is at least as troublesome in its effect on the way Anglicans in different parts of the world are relating to one another. On the whole, the church in the United States and Canada is convinced that same-sex marriage is right and that we should proceed to bless same-sex marriages and/or ordain people married to someone of the same sex. On the whole, churches in Africa think this is wrong and that the North American churches ought not to be proceeding in this way, and they have felt free to aid the setting up of alternative Anglican churches in the United States. The poor Archbishop of Canterbury is trying to hold hands with both sides and hold them together within the Anglican Communion.

You could say he is trying to be Moses, though Moses had more authority than the archbishop has and got more cooperation from the Israelite clans. Until recently in this story, it looked as if the country the Israelites would possess lay entirely west of the Jordan, which is a natural boundary. It was not part of the plan to do battle with anyone east of the Jordan, but some peoples there have been unwise enough to attack the Israelites rather than let them pass through, and have paid for it with their lives and their land. Among other things, it illustrates the way the fulfillment of God’s intentions interacts with human actions. God had no plan to give Israel land east of the Jordan, but that now becomes part of the “plan.”

Moses comes on strong in his reaction to Gad and Reuben, not least in characterizing them as a brood of sinners. He is almost as rude as John the Baptist. He illustrates the way the Bible has little time for Western virtues such as politeness or tolerance. If I had been the head of Gad or Reuben, I would have given Moses a mouthful back; I admire the clans for sticking to the substance of his argument and ignoring the rhetoric. They thereby make it possible to reach a compromise. Gad and Reuben will actually take the lead in the Israelite invasion of Canaan so as to share in taking the country, as the other clans have been involved in taking the land where these two clans want to settle. They thus indicate a recognition that the whole people of God stand together and need to be committed to supporting one another. One part cannot say to another, “I need to look after my destiny and do what will enable me to fulfill my calling” or “I do not need you” (1 Corinthians 12). It has to be prepared to argue, negotiate, and compromise. It cannot take unilateral action.

One can imagine Israelites in (say) the time of Elijah asking, “Why do those clans live across the Jordan? Does that really count as Israel? Do they really belong with us?” This story gives them an answer. It would also constitute a challenge to the eastern clans to keep maintaining the kind of commitment they promise here.


Taken from Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone by John Goldingay