GEOGRAPHY IN THE PARSHA: An Innovative Approach to the Apportionment to half the Tribe of Manesheh
An Innovative Approach to the Apportionment to half the Tribe of Manesheh
Based on an article by Prof. Yoel Elitzur
The central part of Parashat Matos is dedicated to the long and difficult negotiations between Moses and the Gadites and Reubenites over their colonization in the recently captured Transjordan (chapter 32). Until each side was satisfied with the terms of the agreement.
The Torah refers to the Gadites and the Reubenites by name six times. When the back-and-forth deliberations finally conclude and the time comes for the territorial allotment, suddenly the half-tribe of Manasheh enters the scene!
At the end of the chapter, in the description of the conquests of the two and a half tribes, the Manashites figure prominently in the narrative:
The Gadites rebuilt... The Reubenites rebuilt... The descendants of Machir son of Manasheh went to Gilead and captured it... so Moses gave Gilead to Machir son of Manasheh... Jair son of Manasheh went... And Nobah went and captured Kenath and its dependencies, renaming it Nobah after himself. (32:34-42)
Why were the Manashites absent from the entire discussion and why were they suddenly and surprisingly included in the practical territorial allotment? These questions become much sharper when viewed in the context of the serious accusations that Moses levied toward the Reubenites and the Gadites:
Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Why will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Lord has given them? That is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to survey the land... they turned the minds of the Israelites from invading the land that the Lord had given them... And now you, a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to the Lord’s wrath against Israel... you will bring calamity upon all this people. (32:6-15)
This whole furious screen does not include the Manashites. Why?
“They Marched On and Went Up the Road to Bashan”
In the course of the people of Israel’s passage through the Transjordan, which the Torah describes in detail in Numbers 21 and again in Moses’ speech at the beginning of Deuteronomy, we read that after the people of Israel avoided entering the lands of Edom and Moab, they approached Sihon and requested permission to enter his land. When their request was denied, they attacked him and conquered his land. Then the Torah makes the surprising statement: “They marched on and went up the road to Bashan, and King Og of Bashan, with all his people, came out to Edrei to engage them in battle” (21:33). Why did they go to Bashan? The path to the Jordan and the land of Canaan had become clear for passage with their conquest of the kingdom of Sihon, so what is the explanation for their deviation northward to Bashan?
It seems, then, that the land of Bashan, the territory of the half-tribe of Manasheh, is part of the land that had already been designated for conquest. As Chazal put it: “The Manashites did not take [the land] of their own accord” (Yerushalmi Bikkurim 1:8 [64b]). The Reubenites and the Gadites requested to remain in territory that had not been designated for allotment to the tribes, and because of this Moses compared them to the spies, who wanted to remain in the wilderness of Paran and not enter the land. In contrast, the Manashites receive a territory in the northern part of the Transjordan that was designated for them in the first place. The question is merely how and when this connection between the Manashites and Gilead and Bashan was established.
Territorial Apportionment in the Patriarchal Age
In Parshas Va’era, we demonstrated that many of Jacob’s grandsons who were born in Egypt were named for places in the land of Israel. This phenomenon was particularly common among the Manashites, who used names like Gilead, Hepher, Shechem and Tirzah – all of which refer to places in Manassite territory on both sides of the Jordan – while they were still in Egypt. We explained that Jacob’s children, who were men of action, related seriously and practically to the national destiny that they received from their ancestors: “To your offspring I assign this land.” With this in mind, they began apportioning the regions of the land between themselves before their emigration to Egypt. Of course, this kind of apportionment was necessarily general, as, in the end, the size of each tribe and its abilities were the deciding factors in the final apportionment. The brothers also wandered through the land of Israel setting up residence in places that were designated for them. (For example, Judah set up residence in Timnah, Adullam and Chezib in the Judean foothills.) The emigration to Egypt disrupted this natural process, but even in Egypt Jacob’s sons continued to pine for their territories in the Promised Land and thus gave their children names that kept the fire burning. As a result, when the people of Israel finally returned to the land in the time of Moses and Joshua, they were able to relate to and connect with the places whose memory was preserved for all those years.
Accordingly, the geographical allusions to tribal territories in the verse, “He went in pursuit as far as Dan” (Genesis 14:14), and in the blessings of Jacob and Moses to the tribes, referred to that first, theoretical territorial map. Not all of the territorial boundaries established in that map became reality later on. The factors that led to changes in the map were the transplantation of the Reubenites and the Gadites to the Transjordan against the original plan, Joshua’s inability to dispossess the far north of the land, the differences in ability and motivation between the various tribes and perhaps other reasons as well – as they say: plans change. Bible critics generally take the opposite approach in their explanation, claiming that the later reality influenced the narrative of the earlier generations after the fact. However, those who explain in this manner become tripped up by the details of the earlier texts that never became reality in the future. For instance, in the end Zebulun never dwelled “by the seashore… until Sidon” – this territory was inherited by the tribe of Asher. Similarly, the Reubenites never played a prominent role in the leadership of the nation of Israel.
Returning to the matter at hand, we learned that the Manashites had an early connection to Gilead and Bashan on one side of the Jordan and to northern Samaria on the other side, a connection that had been recognized by the sons of Jacob themselves. Thus, when the road leading up to Gilead and Bashan became clear, the entire nation joined in going up and engaging in battle with King Og of Bashan, and the northern part of the Transjordan was rightfully given to the Manashites.
The Novel Solution of “The Student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon”
There are two questions that arise at this point. First, considering that Manasheh was born in Egypt, how and when did he develop connections to his territory? Second – a larger question about the apportionment map in general – if Manasheh, as one of Joseph’s two children, was only a half-tribe in the first place, why was his territory so enormous? Indeed, Manasheh’s territory is the largest of the tribes of Israel. In the Transjordan, Manasheh inherited the entire land of King Og of Bashan, from half of Gilead in the south up to and including Mount Hermon in the north, and from the Sea of Galilee and the northern Jordan in the west until Jabal al-Druze in the east. In the Cisjordan, Manasheh’s territory includes northern Samaria from Shechem and Nahal Qana in the south until the Jezreel Valley in the north, including most of the Sharon plain in the west and the Jordan Rift Valley in the east (as well as additional territory in the valleys and in the northern Sharon; see Joshua 17:11). How did such a thing come to be?
The answer to these questions was supplied by an early and original commentator on the book of Chronicles, known as “the student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon.” The genealogical lists in Chronicles (I Chronicles 2:21) mention the conquests of Jair son of Manasheh in Gilead and Bashan in connection with the early generations of the tribe of Judah, without mentioning at all the Egyptian enslavement, the Exodus or the conquests of Joshua. “The student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon,” in his commentary there, maintains that Machir and his sons took possession of territory in the land of Israel “during the rulership of Joseph, who was king of the land.” After Joseph died, the land changed hands:
The gentiles attacked them, took [the territories] from their hands and settled in them until [Israel] came to the land of Israel [during the time of Moses]. Because of this, the descendants of Machir desired to settle the land of Gilead, so Moses gave them land from the holdings of their ancestor.
The presumption of “the student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon” that there were Egyptian provinces in the land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan was apparently based on various verses in Genesis (e.g., “So all the world came to Joseph in Egypt to procure rations” [41:57]; “And the money gave out in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan” [47:15]; “Chariots, too, and horsemen went up with him… they came to Goren Ha-Atad” [50:9-10]). Today this approach might be supported by the Egyptian sources and by the Amarna Letters.
“The student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon” points out another significant verse in this context: “Since Machir, the first-born of Manasheh, was a valiant warrior, Gilead and Bashan were assigned to him” (Joshua 17:1). Chazal interpreted this verse to mean that Machir lived to be almost two hundred fifty years old. He was born during Jacob’s lifetime and died after Moses’ death, and at the age of about 235 he fought in battles and conquered territory (Seder Olam 9 and parallels). It is clear that this is a homiletic explanation, but what is the simple truth of the matter? From a linguistic perspective it is difficult to interpret this verse to mean that the family of Machir consisted of valiant warriors. The phrase “a valiant warrior” is rendered in the singular and not in the plural. According to “the student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon,” however, this verse is not referring to the time of Joshua but to the time of Joseph. Machir – the man, Joseph’s grandson, whose children were “born upon Joseph’s knees” (Genesis 50:23) – was a valiant warrior and Gilead and Bashan were assigned to him. Since Machir and his sons held possession of the territories of Gilead and Bashan years earlier, their descendants were given these territories during the time of Moses and Joshua.
Having established this interpretation of the verse, “the student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon” suggests an innovative explanation for the final verses in Parshas Matos: “Know, now, an excellent explanation – that those details in the Chumash regarding Machir, Jair and Nobah are related retroactively, for Machir, Jair and Nobah did not take any [land] in the wilderness” (i.e., in the time after the period of wandering in the wilderness).
Rabbi Judah the Pious, the leader of Hasidei Ashkenaz during the time of the Tosafists, in his commentary on the Torah in the name of his father Rabbi Samuel the Pious (Exodus 1:7):
My father would prove from Chronicles that throughout the time that Israel was in Egypt, they would occasionally travel to the soil of Jacob our father and would build cities there. And I believe that the descendants of Joseph specifically would do this, and they had permission [to do so] from Pharaoh; in respect to Joseph, Pharaoh would treat them with respect, [allowing them] to improve and strengthen their inheritance. And they would settle the land with tenants and charge them a tax…
A similar opinion is found in the commentary of Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel on our parsha:
Some say that Joseph bought these cities during the time of famine in Egypt, and after his death Ammon and others seized them. And now that Israel has gained the upper hand over them and the cities have been restored to Israel’s possession, the descendants of Machir requested the inheritance of their matriarch.
Further, the book of Numbers had a census during the second year and again in the 40th year. The only tribe to grow significantly was the tribe of Manasheh, which grew from 32,200 to 52,700. What is the background for the unexpected surge – over twenty thousand additional men – in Manasheh’s population?
Perhaps we may make a bold speculation, going one step beyond what the previous generation’s scholars dared suggest. It may be that the twenty thousand men that were added to the tribe of Manasheh in the plains of Moab were descendants of Machir, Jair and Nobah, who never returned to Egypt after establishing cities in the Transjordan, but rather remained in the land of Bashan.
To summarize: The picture that arises from the innovative approach advocated earliest by “the student of Rabbi Saadia Gaon,” later by others, is that the sons of Jacob had already drawn up a general, basic plan for apportioning the land between themselves in the future – even before they emigrated to Egypt. In addition, the sons of Joseph were active in settling whole regions of the land during the time that their father served as second-in-command to Pharaoh, perhaps even at his behest. After Joseph, his brothers and that entire generation died out, when “a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph,” the people’s grip on these holdings in the land of Israel collapsed. However, their yearning for the land and the territories that were designated for each of the tribes continued to resonate within the people. This yearning influenced the names they gave their children, the blessings that Moses bestowed upon the people and, in the end, the very conquest of the land and its apportionment.
