The Israelites fooled around with Moabite women, but the Moabites got away with it. The Midianites weren't so fortunate and got massacred, and plundered. We also learned something interesting, that Balaam was somehow responsible for leading the Israelites astray. Anyway everyone got killed except for virgins (we are not told what happened to them, but can imagine...*sigh*). I find all this quite difficult to read. Plus it's hard to imagine Moses directing all this, when it would surely have involved his in-laws.
Reuben and Gilead decide that the land is good enuff for them, and requests to stay. Instead, they got an earful from Moses, and guai guai vow to continue fighting in the army with the assurance that once Canaan has been possessed, this land will be given to them. Eventually, this whole swathe of land (modern Jordan) was given to Reuben, Gad and part of Manasseh. So biblically, Jordan actually belongs to Israel. Hmmm.....not sure how this will play out in the future.
2 comments:
Does it mean that only the Gadites and Reubenites men went into the promised land, but their wives and children did not? I always had the impression everyone went in together to the promised land. Was where they decided to settled down part of the promised land?
Yah...actually this land was not promised by God. Instead these tribes chose the land for themselves, and did not claim their inheritance across the Jordan.
So correctly Jordan and S Syria, was not included in Promise Land. amd was wrongly taken by Israelites. Perhaps that's why Israel has not made any attempt to attack Jordan ... yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Israel
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