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.
