The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright, and though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him, the rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph) – the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
I Chronicles 5:1–3
Reuben, the Firstborn
Reuben has always unnerved me. Something haunted this eldest son. Even as a young girl, when reading his story for the first time, I felt sad for him. His adventures made me think of myself, also the firstborn, in stride with Reuben. We “openers of the womb” (Genesis 29:31) are generalized as the reliable and conscientious children, many of us incapable of coping well with perceived imperfections. Firstborns are alternatively aggressive or compliant; either way, we’re natural leaders. And firstborns have inflated superegos, anxious to do the right thing and please authority – especially that grand authority, the parents. We hold the promises of the world in our eldest hands, and for some – like Reuben – the pressure can be crushing.
In Birth Order and You, the family therapist Ronald Richardson and his coauthor Lois Richardson sum up the experience with this succinct description:
From ancient times, the oldest child has had a special significance in the family – and in the world. This special significance has meant everything from inheriting the kingdom to being offered as a sacrifice in religious rites, which is a good metaphor for the mixed blessings of the oldest.1Ronald W. Richardson and Lois A. Richardson, Birth Order and You (North Vancouver: Self-Counsel Press, 1990), 44.
From the moment that my husband and I named our firstborn, “Reuven” (the Hebrew version of the name), I have had niggling doubts about our choice, even though Jewish tradition firmly supports the naming of a child after a loved one (in this case, my grandfather Rubin). Is it a proud name? Would we have done better opting for Avraham, or David? I’m glad we chose to honor my family, but every now and then, I am given pause when I consider the struggles of the first Reuben, the biblical, conflicted one.
The Meaning of “Reuben”
Consider his name, given to him by his mother, Leah. She was the one who claimed this child and proclaimed him Reuben. Perhaps she was inspired by his very existence: “Re’u ven” (See? A son!).2The simple meaning of the name is as a compound of the imperative plural “ראו” (See!) from the root r-’-h, along with the noun “בן,” ben (son). In his name lay her dreams that Jacob would be bound to her, now that they shared a child. Reuben, at his very birth, was a symbol of Leah’s arrival as an essential figure in Jacob’s household. Maybe now, she thought desperately and a little deliriously, I have earned his love – or at least his affections.
Clearly, he [Jacob] loved Rachel more than Leah.…God saw that Leah was unloved, so He opened her womb [Rachel, meanwhile, remained barren]. Leah conceived and bore a son, and named him “Reuben,” for she declared, “It means: ‘God has seen [ra’ah] my suffering, and now my husband will love me!’”3An alternative etymological interpretation, offered by the JPS commentary on Genesis, relies on the phraseology employed by Leah: “כי ראה ה׳ בעניי כי עתה יאהבני אישי” The compound name is formed by joining the verb ראה (r-’-h) to the verb אהב (‘-h-b). The name thus retains overtones of her plain intent: “See? Now I’ll be loved.”
Genesis 29:30–32
Another possibility: maybe Leah was simply happy that the baby was healthy and without any extraordinary features to draw any additional attention upon them – after all, Leah was surely the focus of much community gossip, having frustrated the natural love of her husband for her sister Rachel by tricking him into marrying her first. “See, thank the Lord, a regular boy was born to me,” she sighed in relief and with expectations that now the vicious gossip might abate.4MHG, Genesis 29:32. See also BR 71:2.
A deeper reading of the text: Leah sensed something ominous and at the same time redemptive about this child’s future. Reuben was unique for a firstborn: he was to lose his firstborn privileges, but he did so gracefully. Later in life, he would even attempt to save the life of the much-younger brother who essentially usurped the primary status among the sons. “See? A son: See how this son differs from that other firstborn in the family, Isaac’s son Esau, who sought to kill his brother Jacob to regain his firstborn privilege.” Reuben might suffer, intuited Leah, but he will emerge as a model for his brothers to emulate.5Berakhot 7b; also MHG, Genesis 29:32.
From birth, then, this boy was alternatively a symbol of a mother’s triumph and a desperate wish for legitimacy. Did he absorb the apprehensive glances of Leah? Did he sense the significance of his name?
Loyalty to Leah
The birth of Reuben undoubtedly helped Leah feel more securely a part of Jacob’s life. The child, in turn, understood well her inferior position in Jacob’s house – who knows how long he sensed this? Such things are not difficult for even a small child to understand.
A midrash teaches us that when Reuben was a young boy of ten years, he was out in the fields tending his father’s mule. Approaching a strange plant, he excitedly recognized it as the duda’im, the dangerous mandrake, which kills anything attempting to uproot it. The duda’im plant was a renowned fertility talisman. Reuben badly wanted to procure the valuable mandrake to bring joy to his mother – to the extent that he was willing to face his father’s anger at losing the beast. Reuben tethered the mule to the plant, and the animal died trying frantically to free itself. Reuben hurried home to his beloved mother Leah with his prize, eager to gift her with the one thing she wanted most in life: the love of Jacob, attainable to her only through the birth of more children.6Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 49:14. For a thorough discussion of this midrash and the magical aspects of the mandrake plant, see Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1954), vol. 5, note 189, 297–98.
How devastating it must have been for a young child to be so sensitive to his mother’s pain, even assuming that it went unspoken. Reuben grew into a frustrated young man, simmering at every occasion when his mother was shunned by Jacob in favor of her sister Rachel. This righteous indignation could not be contained when father Jacob, mourning the untimely loss of Rachel, sought solace in the arms of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah, instead of seeking out Leah. The Sages fill us in on Reuben’s inner turmoil:
Reuben harbored within himself the humiliation his mother had endured: for the whole of Rachel’s married life, her bed was always placed next to Jacob’s bed. Upon Rachel’s death, Jacob replaced her bed with Bilhah’s. Cries Reuben: Was it not enough that my mother was slighted during her sister’s lifetime? That she is still slighted – by a maidservant, nonetheless – is too much!
Genesis Rabbah 98:4
Incensed to the point of irrationality, Reuben did the unthinkable: he slept with his father’s wife, Bilhah.7Genesis 35:22. The Sages mitigated the nature of the sin by proffering that Reuben did not actually have relations with Bilhah, but committed the lesser offense of taking Jacob’s bed out of Bilhah’s tent and moving it into Leah’s tent, instead. His accountability was in meddling in his father’s private affairs. See Shabbat 55b.
Sin and Loss
What did Reuben hope to accomplish by sleeping with Bilhah?8One explanation, gleaned from pseudepigraphal sources, was that this sin was driven by lust. Reuben inadvertently witnessed Bilhah’s naked beauty as she was bathing and could not control his carnal urges (Testament of Reuben 3:11; Jubilees 33:2). See James Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), 272–73. For a complete exposition of the pseudepigraphal literature on the event, see Kugel’s article “Reuben’s Sin with Bilhah in the Testament of Reuben,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells, ed. David P. Wright, David N. Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 525–53. Nothing, maybe – perhaps his impetuosity was an uncalculated lashing out against his father, or a peal of pain on his mother’s behalf.9Reuben, prior to this episode, was not an aggressive firstborn, but a compliant one: one of the “model children who grow up to be pleasers of others” (Richardson, Birth Order and You, 80). “Compliant firstborns are well known for taking it and being walked on by a world that loves to take advantage of them. They are also known for nursing their resentments quietly, and then venting with one grand explosion” (ibid., 82). That the text places this episode directly after the story of Rachel’s death intimates a link between the two events. The midrash above fills in the details: a suffering son, driven by his maternal fealty to revenge. Father undermined Mother? Well, I’ll undermine him!10It is also possible that sleeping with Bilhah, a clear arayot (incestuous) transgression, was a calculated move to drive a wedge between Jacob and Bilhah, and not just intended as a grave insult to Jacob.
What Jacob thought of this all played out over the rest of the Book of Genesis, sometimes tantalizingly, in the empty spaces within the stories, and sometimes with explicit directness. The text tells us that immediately after Reuben sinned with Bilhah, Jacob heard of the matter. We are not privy to more than that dry fact, but we do know that immediately afterwards, the verses list Jacob’s sons, placing Reuben first – and a telling addition to his name: “Reuben – Jacob’s firstborn – Simeon, Levi, Judah… ” (Genesis 35:23). Reuben seems to have retained the prime position within the family hierarchy. Are we to intuit from this that all was forgiven?11Most commentators understand the inclusion of “bekhor Yaakov” (Jacob’s firstborn) as a strong signal that Reuben retained some element of primacy, even in the wake of his sin with Bilhah. To what extent he was still considered a bekhor is a matter of dispute. See Rashi, Radak, Seforno on Genesis 35:22.
No more overt hints are offered12Genesis 34:5, 35:22. until Jacob’s deathbed, when he held back nothing, and fired at Reuben:
Reuben, you are my firstborn!
My might and first fruit of my vigor.
Exceeding in rank and exceeding in honor…
Unstable as water [paĥaz ka-mayim], you shall excel no longer;
For when you mounted your father’s bed, you brought disgrace.
My couch he mounted!
Genesis 49:3–4
There is no getting around the fact, claimed Jacob, that you crossed the line. You went beyond meddling in my marital affairs – you slept with my woman! Beyond disgraceful, it will cost you your firstborn birthright. Reuben, you are indeed my firstborn son, “my might and the first fruit of my vigor.” You may have been tormented by the complexities of my feelings toward my wives, but you were always slated for the greatness of the firstborn. It was your impetuosity, Reuben, your inability to accept the complexities of my humanity as my right, that cost you your right. You shall exceed no longer.
There is something about firstborns, I believe, that makes them vulnerable to the vicissitudes of their mother’s feelings, even more so than their father’s. They are the first to bear the brunt of her love, of her disappointment, of her dreams. The firstborn opens the woman, and then she is a mother. Forever after, she will always be a mother, and the child has made her so. And this first child feels the full force of the mother’s stumbling attempts to learn how to mother. If the mother is successful, the child will fiercely love her back.
So it was with Reuben. The staunch, pure loyalty to Leah was so central to his character that it dominated his tribal symbols. The flag of Reuben was embossed with a mandrake plant;13BaR 2:7. likewise, Reuben’s stone on the priestly breastplate was the odem – a ruby14That his flag and stone are shaded red finds happy coincidence with the Latin root rubeus, meaning red, a tantalizing alikeness to the Semitic name, Reuben. – chosen for its believed ability to improve chances of conception. Clearly, we must never forget the centrality of Leah to Reuben’s identity.
Reuben was a sensitive child, however, looking to please both of his parents. Where the text burdens us with interpreting Jacob’s silence after the Bilhah affair, Reuben had no difficulty understanding just how Jacob viewed his act. The Sages read Reuben’s remorse into every reference to him from here on. Reuben, they say, did not need to wait the long years until his father’s death to feel the wrongness of his deed and the seriousness of his infraction. We may also infer from Reuben’s then-constant penitence an anxiety that his birthright of primacy was in jeopardy.
Penitence and Redemption
Where was evidence of Reuben’s conscience-stricken spirit? Witness Reuben’s eagerness to save his brother Joseph’s life. Years after Reuben’s sin (we cannot say exactly when), Joseph, favorite son of Jacob, dreamed of the future. He fashioned himself as head of the brothers, envisioning his role as central and superior within the family hierarchy – even his parents would be subject to his leadership. Joseph shared his dreams with his family, perhaps in the naiveté of youth, perhaps to provoke, and the brothers banded against him. Whipped into jealous frenzy, the brothers conspired to kill Joseph as they saw him approaching from afar. Reuben, whose role Joseph threatened directly and whom we therefore would expect to see heading this cabal, instead jumped to intercede: “Let us not take his life!…Do not shed his blood, rather cast him into this pit in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves” (Genesis 37:21–22).
Reuben, the verse testifies, intended to return Joseph to Jacob after his brothers had dispersed. The brothers (perhaps begrudgingly, but nonetheless) deferred to Reuben, and Joseph was cast alive into the pit, whereupon the brothers sat to feast.
It should be noted that Reuben had matured some since his youthful defiance. In this episode, we see a more cautious Reuben, a more responsible one, who waited things out and tried to temper the rashness of his brothers. He had erred in tampering with the Jacob-Rachel relationship, so later he tried mightily to protect Joseph, the direct outgrowth of that relationship. He reasoned with his brothers and convinced them to change their course of action. Reuben, tentatively, the leader.
Unfortunately, Reuben’s plan was forgotten in the brutal excitement of a game-changer.
They sat down to a meal; looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.…Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.”…They pulled Joseph up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites.…Reuben returned to the pit and behold! – Joseph was not in the pit!
Genesis 37:25–29
Where was Reuben while his brothers were feasting? He had exited the scene, the Sages say, so as to sit alone in sackcloth, fasting, the sobbing prayerful posture of the penitent.15BR 84:19; PK 24:9. YS 157 finds a linguistic allusion to Reuben’s teshuvah in the verse וישב ראובן אל הבור. Reuben occupied every spare moment engaged in teshuvah (penitence), attempting in word and deed to compensate for his sin with Bilhah. His leadership was present, but hesitant and then absent – and ultimately failed. For while Reuben was off atoning for a sin committed long ago, his brothers engaged in a more heinous one. They sold Joseph to a passing caravan of Ishmaelite traders, and there was no one there to convince them otherwise. When Reuben returned, it was too late: “He tore his clothes…and screamed, ‘The boy is gone! Now what am I going to do?’” (Genesis 7:29–30).
We deeply sympathize with Reuben. He seems to bewail the inevitable disappointment and guilt that Jacob was to level on him, the oldest, the natural leader. If, through his stumbling leadership, Reuben sought to dispel Joseph’s visions that he, Rachel’s firstborn, was the destined leader, and to persuade Jacob that indeed Leah’s firstborn should be rewarded the primacy, he clearly failed.
A bittersweet note: Since Reuben attempted to save Joseph, his naĥalah was later granted the distinction of housing the first ir miklat, city of refuge.16Bezer, in the naĥalah of Reuben, was first of the cities declared an ir miklat (BR 84:15; Makkot 10a). The ir miklat served as a haven for those guilty of accidental manslaughter. Because Reuben tried to avert Joseph’s death, his portion was granted the first asylum for those who, though tainted with guilt, did not intend to murder.
Another Shot at Redemption
Another opportunity for Reuben to redeem himself arrived years later. The story: a famine tore the land. The famished brothers were sent down to Egypt by Jacob to find food. They found themselves accused of espionage by the vizier of Egypt (we, the readers, know that this is the disguised Joseph), who held Simeon hostage until the brothers returned with Benjamin. Awareness of the cause of their dire situation – their callous sale of Joseph – dawned on the brothers, and they began to repent their past misdeeds. Reuben, haunted for many years by this failure, burst out: “Did I not tell you, ‘Do no wrong to the boy,’ but you would not listen! Now comes the reckoning for his blood” (Genesis 42:22).
The brothers unwillingly left Simeon in Egypt and returned to Jacob. But Jacob would not relinquish Benjamin into his brothers’ care. They had already been involved in the shadiest of affairs, the apparent death of Joseph. Nor did Jacob trust this new Egyptian vizier. His vision of a nation composed of all twelve of his sons was crumbling, and he was in despair: “You have bereaved me! Joseph is no more; Simeon is no more. And now you would take away Benjamin?! These things always happen to me!” (Genesis 42:36). Here again Reuben tried to lead, to take responsibility. He deliriously bargained with his father: “You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Hold me responsible; I shall return him!” (Genesis 42:37).
Driven to extremes, Reuben exposed his distress in all of its complexity. The insanity of Reuben’s offer causes the reader – and the text – to stop short. We are relieved that the text compassionately omits Jacob’s response, sparing us (and Reuben) head-on exposure to Reuben’s pain. Yet Jacob’s reaction is implicit in his contemptuous refusal to respond – and his repeated refusal to part with Benjamin. In the midrash’s words: “A foolish firstborn! Doesn’t he realize that his sons are my grandsons, and their deaths will bring me pain like the deaths of my children are paining me?!” (Genesis Rabbah 91:9).
But that was the painful truth embedded in Reuben’s mad offer: he truly did not realize that his sons were Jacob’s grandsons. Reuben believed that Jacob did not care about his grandsons from Leah’s children, that only Rachel’s children counted. He thought that Jacob was willing to act to protect Benjamin, but not Simeon; that Jacob mourned Joseph, but would not mourn Reuben’s children.17I am grateful to Batnadiv HaKarmi-Weinberg for drawing my attention to this subtext. Deeply rooted anxiety was Reuben’s birthright – “God saw that Leah was hated, so He granted her a son” to begin building her relationship with Jacob – and it never dissipated.
No role was predetermined in this family. Think back to those faint echoes of Reuben’s future as his mother Leah bestowed upon him the heaviness of his name: see, a son who might grow to be unlike the other rejected firstborns in Abraham’s family! Isaac, the younger son of Abraham, was chosen over firstborn Ishmael. Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, was chosen over firstborn Esau. Even Rachel, younger sister to Leah, was the favored one. Reuben certainly knew that being the firstborn did not guarantee the scepter. Whatever heightened anxieties he may have had prior to his sin with Bilhah were exacerbated by his father’s distant silence after the fact, and as much as he sought to prove himself, he alone sabotaged every effort. He could not lead – but he could repent.
Reuben spent the rest of his life atoning for his sin with Bilhah. This was the dominant feature, the reoccurring motif that colored so much of his tribe’s character: the remorseful penitent. As the tribe that excelled in seeking atonement, Reuben was deliberately placed in the encampment formation around the Tabernacle alongside sinning Simeon, so as to encourage that tribe toward teshuvah.18BaR 2:10 and 3:12. The very name of the tribal prince, “Elitzur” (“my God is a rock”), intimated the “penance of Reuben, who was forgiven by God, the Rock who will bear his sin as a foundation stone bears the weight of a house.”19Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 1:5.
Even his descendants excelled in the art of repentance. One of the first prophets, Hosea, certainly the first to plead eloquently with Israel to repent from their sinning ways, was from the tribe of Reuben. The Sages saw in this a poetic justice:
God said to Reuben: “You were the first to turn to Me in penitence. By your life, your descendant Hosea son of Be’eri will be the first to instruct Israel in the ways of teshuvah!” (…for so it says in the Book of Hosea: “Turn to God, O Israel… ”)
Genesis Rabbah 84:1920Also PK 24:9.
Moses’s Plea for Reuben
Full exoneration came not in Reuben’s lifetime, but in the days of Moses,21BR 98:4. when he prayed on Reuben’s behalf:
The intent of Moses’s vague plea was fleshed out by the midrash, which explained the confusing repetitive language of “live…and not die” as the duality of this world and the World to Come. Moses was asking that Reuben be granted a successful future among the tribes of Israel, and that his repentance be accepted on high so that he might earn his place in the Next World, a status that had been in limbo until then.22Sifrei, Deuteronomy 347; Midrash Tannaim 33:6. Moses’s prayer was accepted. Incidentally, we know Reuben received full pardon, because his tribe was charged with leveling the curse at Mount Ebal: “Cursed is he who sleeps with his father’s wife” (Deuteronomy 27:13, 20). If Reuben were still held accountable for that sin, then Moses would not have been so cruel as to ask of his tribe effectively to curse themselves! Thus we know the atonement was complete.23BR 98:4.
True, Reuben moved past his atonement, but his sin with Bilhah was ever-present for him: he lost the firstborn birthright. Did he go on to find his place in Am Yisrael, even with the specter of sin continuously attendant? I believe he tried mightily, and this maturity was exhibited as Am Yisrael was about to enter their homeland.
Reuben’s Duty toward His Brothers
Forty years of desert life gave the nation strong tribal affiliations. They encamped around the Tabernacle as tribes, each decided on a tribal prince to represent their interests before Moses and the nation, and they were counted in census by tribal membership. Ostensibly, they were all meant to cross the Jordan as one nation, at which time the division of the land into naĥalot would be determined by divine lottery. That was not what happened, however, and the tribe of Reuben – with overtones of its namesake’s paĥaz-ka-mayim spontaneity and impetuousness – did not want to wait.
Reuben and Gad owned much cattle; they saw the lands of Jazer and Gilead were excellently suited for cattle. So the tribes of Gad and Reuben approached Moses, Elazar the Priest, and the princes of the tribes, and said, “ . . . this land that God has conquered for the congregation of Israel is good for cattle raising – and we’ve got the cattle! If it pleases you, let your servants be given this land as a holding; do not move us across the Jordan.”
Numbers 32:1–5
Worryingly, here was the old Reuben surfacing again: impulsive when he felt justified in being so, even if it ran counter to protocol. The confederation of tribes was supposed to divvy up the land west of the Jordan – to settle prematurely on other lands (east of the Jordan, for example) amounted to secession. Were Reuben and Gad rejecting the national mission to conquer the Land of Canaan and claim it as the Land of Israel? More urgently: were they shirking their military responsibility to the nation? Moses was angry. He hurled accusations:
Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?! Why are you turning the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land which God has given them?…and now you, a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to God’s wrath against Israel!
Numbers 32:6–7, 14
In response, and to our relief, Reuben did not retreat into his natural inner world of sackcloth and atonement. This time, he did not waffle, lost in incompetency. Though eager to realize his own tribal success, Reuben had grown temperate and responsible. He at last suggested a plan that could be fully executed (unlike the botched rescue of Joseph) and would not be scoffed at (unlike the desperate overture to save Simeon). After all, he had intended all along to “sally forth, armed for battle, leading the Children of Israel until we have established them in their homes. We will not return to our homes until every one of the Israelites is in possession of his portion” (Numbers 32:17–18). Here you have it: glimpses of impetuousness at preempting the Grand National Plan, balanced by a conscientious promise to serve the nation. Outwardly, at least, Reuben had arrived.
Reuben went on to fight for Israel, leaving behind families and assets. Thus extolled Joshua:
You have not forsaken your kinsmen through the long years down to this day, and have fully kept the commandment of the Lord your God.
Joshua 22:3
When the tribe was given leave to return back to their naĥalah, Reuben was again accused by a deeply suspicious Israel of secession. Once more, he passionately defended himself, clarifying that “God, the Lord God! God, the Lord God! He knows, and Israel too shall know! If we acted in rebellion or in treachery against the Lord, do not vindicate us this day” (Joshua 22:22). Though the people accepted his explanation, the emergent pattern of a nation repeatedly wary of its “eldest tribe” betrays a strained and complicated relationship between Reuben and the rest of Am Yisrael.
Naĥalat Reuven
What then made the region of Reuben’s naĥalah an appropriate fit for the tribe of Reuben?
The explanation provided by the text for why Reuben was attracted to the Transjordan is straightforward: this region was appropriate for the tribe’s needs: wide-open flatlands, good for grazing large herds. They had been told that across the river lay difficult terrain of sharp mountains and steep valleys, a terrain that was worrisome to cattle farmers. This safer, known area, east of the Dead Sea, called to them. Could there have been other reasons, though, for Reuben’s preference?
To determine this, we must expand on the geography and history of the Transjordanian plateau, home to the two and a half tribes of the Kingdom of Israel who chose their territory east of the Jordan.
There is a fairly narrow north–south strip of land starting just south of the basalt Golan Heights that runs all the way down to the Gulf of Aqaba and empties into the Red Sea. This strip constitutes a small portion of the eastern rim of the Syro-African Rift, a fault line stretching more than 6,000 kilometers (approx. 3,700 miles). It is bordered on the west by the deep rift itself, plunging at its lowest point into the Dead Sea, and, on the east, by vast tracts of desert. The strip is essentially a highland plateau, severed into defined geographical units by a series of east–west canyons formed by ancient rivers rushing west toward the Jordan River. Of the four main rivers, the Yarmuk is northernmost, severing the Golan Heights in the north from the Transjordan Plateau. Next is the Jabbok (Nahr ez-Zerqa), emptying into the Jordan River about halfway down the Rift Valley, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Then there is the mighty Arnon (Wadi el-Mujib), which spills into the Dead Sea. More south still is the Zered riverbed (Wadi el-Ĥesa), at the southernmost tip of the Dead Sea. The highland plateau can be divided into tracts formed by these great wadis.24See map insert for further reference.
Running north through the highland plateau is a leg of the most famous route in antiquity: the King’s Highway. This road, extant for thousands of years and serving all ancient peoples, broadly makes up one critical tract of the tortuous route linking Africa and Asia, or Egypt and Mesopotamia.
This highland plateau, broken up by these rivers, is the region of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. Broadly put, Manasseh dwelt in the mountainous Gilead region between the Yarmuk and the Jabbok (as well as north, beyond the Yarmuk, in the large area known as the Bashan; see chapter 13 on Manasseh for further detail). Gad claimed the midsection, spanning south of the Jabbok and culminating at the Plains of Moab, a yawning stretch of land facing the oasis city of Jericho. The Plains of Moab also formed the northern border of Reuben, whose naĥalah extended south until the Arnon. The bulk of terrain within the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad was the broad, flat expanse of level tableland on the highland plateau, known in the Bible as the Mishor.
The Mishor, the Plains of Moab, and the mountains of Gilead to the north were all conquered in a war fought by Israel prior to entering the Land of Israel. The lands originally belonged to the Amorites, and stretched from the River Jabbok down south to the River Arnon. Numbers 21 contains the account of the confrontation, beginning with polite overtures by the Israelites toward Sihon, the Amorite king, to allow them to continue north on portions of the King’s Highway that ran through Amorite territory (this territory had at one time belonged to Moab; Sihon had taken it in battle). Sihon refused, opting to drive the Israelites away, but he was roundly defeated and his lands fell in their entirety to the Israelites. Bolstered by their resounding victory, the Israelites headed north and defeated Og, king of Bashan, probably also an Amorite king, and conquered the Gilead and lands to the north. Thus, the entire strip of highlands, from the Hermon, north of the Golan Heights, down to the River Arnon, came to be in the possession of the Israelites.25Numbers 21:21–35.
Reuben and Gad eyed the expanse to the east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, north of the Arnon and running up to the southern hills of the Gilead, and were pleased because of the ample grazing terrain.26That the Mishor and more southern Moabite lands encouraged herdsmen is further evidenced by Mesha, king of Moab, who is described as a herdsman in II Kings 3:4 (he pays tribute to the Omride kings with a hundred thousand fattened sheep and a hundred thousand woolly rams). The Mesha Stele itself contains apparent reference to “tzon ha-aretz” (the sheep of the land) – the region in context being the Mishor. For more on the Mesha Stele, see “Visiting Naĥalot Reuven ve-Gad” in this chapter, and see chapter 2. The climate, heavily influenced by the desert to the east and by the steep slopes descending to the Jordan River and Dead Sea to the west, produced conditions favorable to ranching and agriculture.27“[The] high ridges arrest and cool the atmosphere, causing the large amount of rainfall which most parts of Transjordan enjoy.… Burning siroccos in the spring and fall, and icy desert winds in winter sweep undisturbed over the tableland, rendering most difficult the cultivation of olive groves and vineyards, which are so common in western Palestine. The character of the country is therefore mainly pastoral, and wherever rain is sufficient wheat is the primary crop.” Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1979), 36. What else was appealing to them?
First, the region had sufficient freshwater sources. The Transjordan highland plateau is made of limestone layered on Nubian sandstone. Sandstone is not porous; thus, even if the bulk of the limestone was worn away by the many perennial rivers flowing westward from the watershed, the sandstone remained and allowed for significant surface water.
Additionally, the swath of King’s Highway running through the land might have been a considerable attraction to tribes that were to have little access to the major urban centers of their brethren to the west. Reuben and Gad were essentially on their own and benefitted from the caravanserai that wended their way up from Arabia toward Damascus and paid for the use of the King’s Highway. Not to be underestimated was the strategic advantage of controlling the road for purposes of national income and defense.28Although they could not have known this yet, the tribes that settled in the Transjordan were to play a critical role during the United Monarchy of David and Solomon, when they were forced to defend Israelite control over the King’s Highway from Damascus’s onslaughts (II Kings 10:33, 16:6).
It is possible that Reuben and Gad’s decision to angle for this region was ideologically motivated. Even then, Israel needed a buffer from the enemies of the east: Ammon, Moab, and Midian. Much as today’s Israeli residents of the Jordan Valley see themselves as serving their nation by forming that defensive zone, Reuben and Gad did the same for their brothers. This would be another nod to the suggestion that Reuben assumed his natural responsibility as oldest brother to protect the family: not just to settle them in their respective naĥalot, but to always stand guard against the great eastern threat. Considering the location of Gad’s cities, and by extension, Gad’s assumed role as the nation’s warriors,29See “Gad, the Confident Warrior,” in chapter 10. much of the task of defense was the purview of that tribe, but we must not overlook Reuben’s association with Gad and their potential role in helping Gad fend off Israel’s enemies.
Another motive, though beyond the cattle issue the text is silent, so we can only surmise: perhaps the natures of these tribes, Reuben in particular, were drawn to the relative seclusion and privacy afforded by the Transjordan. The consistent primacy of Joseph and Judah in the tribal hierarchy must surely have stung those who definitively lost a confirmed leadership role in the tribal confederacy, even assuming that they made their peace with it. Maintaining a respectful distance from the constant reminder of what they lost may have been desirable.
Furthermore: there are striking parallels between Reuben and the indigenous Moabite population of this region that tantalize us with prospects of emergent patterns. The naĥalah chosen by Reuben was regularly encroached upon by Moab, a nation unwilling to remain south of the Arnon, home to the substantial bulk of their kingdom.30Numbers 21:13, 22:36. Moab regularly attempted to reclaim the northern stretch of their ancestral homeland, first taken from them by the Amorites and then conquered by the Israelites. The large swath stretching from the Arnon River in the south to the Plains of Moab in the north (just opposite Jericho) beckoned Moab. They often invaded northward, hoping to gain more territory. Sometimes it was difficult to determine who dominated the region.31Joshua 24:9; Judges 3:12, 11:25–26; II Samuel 8:2, 12; II Kings 1:1, 3:4–5; see also the Mesha Stele, discovered in Dibon (a city allotted to Reuben in Numbers 32) and dated to the ninth century BCE, offering extra-biblical evidence that much of the territory listed in biblical accounts as administered by the two and a half tribes in the Transjordan was claimed by the ninth-century king of Moab to be under his jurisdiction. This dovetails nicely with the detail offered by I Chronicles 5:9–10 that already in the early kingdom of Saul, the Reubenites had devolved into a semi-nomadic and less-organized existence, perhaps neglecting their cities and then eventually abandoning them entirely.
The biblical history of this region was reminiscent in these peoples, both descended from firstborns, the tribe of Reuben and the nation Moab. The region provided refuge for Abraham’s nephew Lot, who had had his own problems figuring out his role in the family. He had run off to Sodom, an area just abutting (or even encompassed by) the territory later belonging to Reuben.Upon the terrible ending that befell that cursed place – now a desolate land entombed in deadened salt – Lot incestuously fathered Moab and then Ammon, who settled permanently in their ancestral homeland.
At the salt flats of the lower Dead Sea, in the shadow of that mountain composed entirely of salt, Mount Sodom, the flashes of a hurt Lot and a bewildered Reuben danced together. One fled here and sired two sons whose families remained estranged from their fathers’ roots, and the other willingly and confidently staked claim to the lands bordering the hostile kingdoms of those sons, while essentially cutting himself off from his brethren on the more acceptable side of the river. Both harbored hidden pain, preferring distance to engagement. This stark, silent, salty place giving way to the quiet and mysterious pasturelands of the Mishor beckoned those who yearned for escape. Indeed, there were those among the Israelite kings who fled to the Transjordan to escape political crisis,32David, seeking refuge for his parents (I Samuel 22:3–4); Ish-bosheth, son of Saul (II Samuel 2:8, 12); Absalom, son of David (II Samuel 17:24–27, 19:32). as did fugitives from the west in later periods.33Fleeing Babylonia’s oppressive hand (Obadiah 1:14), as well as the wrath of Seleucid Syria (II Maccabees 4:26, 5:7). It was no coincidence that the first city of refuge (ir miklat) was granted to Reuben,34The Sages linked Reuben’s attempt to save Joseph with the reward of having his city Bezer as the first city designated an ir miklat (BR 84:15; Makkot 10a). Might it be feasible to conceptualize the connection as being more rooted in Reuben’s personality than in his actions? the oldest brother who sought refuge from a family dynamic that forever unsettled him.
The tribe did make good on its vow to lead Israel in conquest. Then, after satisfactorily establishing their brothers across the river, Reuben crossed the river again, going back to settle down. Where, definitively, is unclear, but we have some rough parameters of his naĥalah, enmeshed as it is within the naĥalah of Gad.35See chapter 2, “Excursus: Textual Evidence for Boundary Determination of Naĥalat Reuben.”
The End of Reuben
Here and there were whispers about Reuben once they finished fighting their brothers’ battles. They returned east to rebuild the destroyed Amorite cities and initially settled them, forming a loose and sprawling network that does not seem to have been organized into a centralized government. Perhaps Reuben never bothered; though the tribe chose marginalization over mainstream, they demonstrated no disloyalty to the seat of Israel’s administration in the west by organizing into anything but small municipalities. There was no ambition to do much beyond the stated commitments: fight Israel’s battles and graze the cattle. There is passing reference to the tribe in I Chronicles 5:9 as having eventually resigned themselves to an almost fully nomadic existence, eschewing urban development: “He also dwelled toward the east, as far as the edge of the wilderness, this side of the Euphrates, because their cattle had increased in the land of Gilead. During Saul’s reign…they occupied their tents throughout the entire region east of Gilead.”
It was a rather subdued Reuben, haphazardly retreated to a sprawling jumble of tents, who was most easily dismantled by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser in 732 Bce, as he waged his first campaign against the Kingdom of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser managed a painless victory against Reuben, who finally lay claim to being first: “Reuben, you will be the first to receive your land inheritance…and also the first to lose it” (Yalkut Shimoni 157).36Also MHG, Genesis 49:3. Compare with BR 82:11.
Reuben led the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel across the legendary Sabbatyon River, disappearing into exile and lost to the remnant of Israel. One may conjecture as to where Reuben was taken: perhaps he was relocated in the lands near Khabur River in northeast Syria,37I Chronicles 5:26. or maybe he settled in Gaul and left his mark on the origins of French culture. We can theorize indefinitely, but all that lingers about Reuben are the desolate tels of his naĥalah and the melancholy tales of his life.
Reuben: the firstborn, madly loyal to his mother, tempestuous to a fault. A paradigm of the penitent son, he spent his life atoning for his unforgiveable sin, and made his peace with the unexceptional role left to him. Can we not single out this son as one whose birthright destined him for greatness, but whose actions buried that chance? And should we not, at long last, greatly admire the firstborn who consented to accept his altered role in the family and the nation?
Therein lies the strength of his character, and the essence of Reuben.
Visiting Naĥalot Reuven ve-Gad
Itinerary: Tel Deir ‘Alla (Succoth?); Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi and Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh (Mahanaim/Penuel?); Survey of the Plains of Moab; ascent at Dead Sea via Wadi Zarka Ma’in; overlook at Wadi el-Mujib (Arnon); Tel Dhiban (Dibon); Medeba; Hisban (Heshbon); Mount Nebo
Visiting the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad is unlike taking easy day trips to explore the naĥalot on the western side of the Jordan River. The logistics are difficult to arrange and much depends on the political situation at the time of your trip. Given that these two naĥalot were intertwined terrain, or at least naturally border each other, it makes sense to organize a visit to both naĥalot in one excursion. Since most contemporary readers will find it prohibitively difficult to make this visit, I’ve described these sites more thoroughly, as compensation.
Organizing an itinerary is a straightforward task; bringing it off, however, is not simple, at least not for one carrying an Israeli passport. First, the most logical border crossing for those seeking to visit these naĥalot is the Allenby Bridge, renamed the King Hussein Bridge since it was used by King Faisal Hussein to connect Amman with Jericho between 1948 and 1967, the years of Jordanian control over the West Bank. This border crossing is located just opposite Jericho and is an easy half-hour ride from Jerusalem. Were we to cross here, we would have easy access to the heartland of Gad and Reuben. But Jordan does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank; thus, the Hussein Bridge is off limits to those traveling as Israelis.
All of this means that we would likely pass into Jordan at the alternative border crossing in Beth She’an, just south of the Sea of Galilee. This longer route has its benefits in allowing the Israeli tourist to reflect on his or her unfamiliarity with the lands east of the Jordan. The early morning drive up the Jordan Rift Valley, known in Hebrew as Bika’at ha-Yarden, is arduous, thanks to hairpin turns and few street lights. It also affords a magnificent meditation of the shadowy hills of the Gilead, bathed in pink luster as the sun rises behind their crests. This is as close as most Israelis – and most Jews – get to the east side of the Jordan River. We know that beyond lie the sites of many of the great stories of the Bible, and that at one point, long ago, our ancestors claimed the entire region as their own, but our imaginations must carry us beyond that point.
To navigate the fickle border administration on the Jordanian side of the crossing successfully, you must leave behind any trappings of your Jewish identity: tallit, tefillin, Tanakh. Tensions in the Middle East simmer just below the surface, and the Jordanian government does not want you to inflame the locals with religious displays. You must also arrange for a driver who is willing to wander far off the beaten path, as many of the sites are located in far-flung villages with few signs and landmarks. Best to resolve all the details, including entry permits and additional border charges, with a seasoned tour operator well before your trip.
My goal in visiting Jordan was twofold: I greatly wanted to see the land as described by the Torah that remains elusive to many of us on the west side of the Jordan River, and I wanted to better understand the psyche of the tribes that chose this particular territory. What was it that they saw, exactly, that excited them? Would the land speak to me as well? Could we conclusively identify any cities or regions that are reference points for these tribes and, more broadly, for the whole of the Israelite nation?
Descending as an Israeli down the Jordan Rift Valley on the Jordanian side, opposite the Samarian Hills, is to glance at your beloved through an impenetrable window. The two banks of the now-chastened river, trickling mainly with sewage, seem to be coldly distant brothers, sharing the same blood but refusing to acknowledge each other. Absorbed into the modern Jewish soul is the reverential familiarity of sovereign Israel, the land of our forefathers and of our national destiny, where so many of the events that forged us as a nation played out. Over there is the land of the Bible – but, I remind myself, so is this land, the eastern bank of the Jordan.
Approach the Jabbok River, and one begins to feel this in earnest. The Jabbok is listed as the northern boundary of Shevet Gad, and the major sites to see along its banks belong to that tribe as well. We first visit a site obvious even to the unseasoned layman as a tel, or an artificial mound formed by thousands of years of civilization. Tel Deir ’Alla, a beautifully formed dome of earth, protrudes earnestly from the flatness of the Jordan Valley, and is such an anomaly that curiosity demands we explore further.
A five-minute scamper up the tel affords you a sufficient vista of the surrounding territory: the Jabbok wadi, now dry, stretching northeast, the swath of the Jordan Valley to the west, and the wide-open Plains of Moab to the south.
Many identify this tel as the northern Succoth,38For a compelling alternative identification of Succoth at Tall al-Khisas, see Burton Macdonald, East of the Jordan: Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2000), 144. established by Jacob to the north of the Jabbok River as it emptied into the Jordan after he parted from his brother Esau. In this place, he built himself a home and made booths for his cattle,39Genesis 33:17. naming the location after the momentous event of establishing his presence in the region immediately after the anxiety-ridden confrontation with his hostile brother. Much later, the judge Gideon crossed the Jordan in pursuit of the kings of Midian and sought aid from people of Succoth; they refused him and were subsequently punished.40Judges 8:4–17. The place was also referenced as the general area where Hiram of Tyre cast bronze vessels in earthen molds for Solomon’s Temple.41I Kings 7:46 and II Chronicles 4:17. Indeed, excavations on the tel uncovered ample evidence of a metalworking industry.42David Kennedy and Robert Bewley, Ancient Jordan from the Air (London: The Council for British Research in the Levant, 2004), 101. To our point, Succoth was gifted by Moses to the tribe of Gad as part of their inheritance.43Joshua 13:27.
The most stirring part of surveying the tel, which is a confusing jumble of sherd-littered44In the field of archaeology, “sherds” are fragments of pottery, and the more commonly used “shard” refers specifically to a piece of glass. earth and tumbled walls, is approaching the spot where excavators from the University of Leiden uncovered one of the most exciting finds to emerge thus far in biblical archaeology: the Balaam ben Be’or Inscription. This difficult-to-decipher inscription was painted on a plastered wall and recovered in 119 pieces. Dating to the mid-ninth century Bce, the undetermined dialect of the text (though closely related to Aramaic) retold a prophecy of Balaam ben Be’or, seer of the gods. While the prophecy itself was unrelated to those attributed to Balaam in the Bible,45See Numbers 22–24. and the dating of the inscription is not in consonance with the suggested dating of the biblical story involving the famous prophet,46Mid-thirteenth century Bce. the thrill of encountering extra-biblical evidence of ancient awareness of such a considerable biblical figure is profound. That this evidence was discovered in the general area of Balaam’s activities is no less exciting.
Journeying south and then east, we drive along the moderate trickle of the polluted Jabbok, a dry riverbed where it used to empty into the Jordan, dammed up near Deir-’Alla by the small Al-Rwyha dam, and then further inland by the much-larger King Talal dam. Eastward, past the small dam, the river skips moderately in its narrow course, as the low hills of Gilead begin to rise from the Jordan Valley. We soon reach the twin tels of gold, Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi and Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh (Western and Eastern Tel edh-Dhahab, respectively). The two mounds, nearly identical in proportion, lie on opposite banks of the meandering Jabbok. Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi retains some meager evidence of foundation walls on its lower slopes. A probable identification of these tels is biblical Mahanaim,47For a thorough analysis of the sources, see MacDonald, East of the Jordan, 141–42. a city apportioned to Gad48Joshua 13:26, 30. and designated as an ir miklat, a site of refuge for those guilty of accidental manslaughter, and inhabited by the Levites from the clan of Merari.49Joshua 21:36; I Chronicles 6:65.
Mahanaim, like Succoth, was named thus by Jacob, who parted ways with Laban in the hills of Gilead and was journeying westward, “on his way.”50Genesis 32:2. He named the place “encampments,” after encountering God’s angels, saying, “This is the camp of God.”51Genesis 32:3. It was ostensibly from Mahanaim that Jacob sent messengers to engage his brother Esau. Many years later, in the wake of King Saul’s death, the general Avner accompanied the prince Ish-bosheth to Mahanaim and anointed him there as king “over all of Israel,” in flagrant contest with David.52II Samuel 2:8–9. Later still, King David fled there from the threat of his mutinying son Absalom.53II Samuel 17:24, 27; 19:33.
Josephus notes that the Greek toponym for Mahanaim, Manalis, is translated as “camps,” which parallels the plurality of the original Hebrew name. The twin tels seem to reflect the dual nature of the name “encampments” topographically, even though certain scholars identify the eastern mound (Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh) separately as Penuel, the site of Jacob’s nighttime wrestle with the angel.54Genesis 32:31–32. While many other cities were apportioned to Gad, this particular site stirs up associations with the very symbol of the tribe, the tent, emblazoned on its standard.
We travel back westward along the same poor road abutting the Jabbok to reach the Jordan Valley yet again, and continue southward toward the Dead Sea. North and south of Wadi Hisban (Heshbon River), which runs east–west and in antiquity would have emptied into the Jordan just north of the Dead Sea, we pass a number of nondescript tels: Tel el-Ĥammam (Abel-shittim, where the Israelites “began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab,”55Numbers 25:1. and from where Joshua sent spies to reconnoiter Jericho;56Joshua 2:1. it was also from Abel-shittim that the Israelites set out to cross the Jordan57Joshua 3:1.), Tel el-’Azeimeh (Beth-jeshimoth, the southernmost extremity of the Israelite encampment in the Plains of Moab, and later assigned to Reuben), Tel Nimrin (Nimrah, or Beth-nimrah, assigned to Gad)58Numbers 32:36. and Tel Iktanu or Tel ar-Rama (both have been identified as Beth-haran, also assigned to Gad).59Ibid. These unexceptional tels (with the exception of Tel Iktanu, which is quite impressive) dot the landscape identified as the “Plains of Moab,” rich with many scenes from within the biblical narrative. This indeterminate area, referenced so often in the Bible,60Numbers 22:1, 26:3, 63, 31:12, 33:48–50, 35:1, 36:13; Deuteronomy 34:1, 8; Joshua 13:23. also formed, perhaps just for a circumscribed time, the northern boundary of Reuben and ended the southern boundary of Gad. (We do expect to see more Gadite cities further to the south, though, as we approach the Arnon River. See the discussion below on boundary determination in chapter 2.)
Soon the Dead Sea, a contained basin of liquid sunshine that looks oily and languid, is sparkling on our right. Jordan is still developing a Dead Sea resort area of sorts, with luxury hotels and lush grounds basking in the relentless and unique heat of the lowest point on earth. We mosey along the coast for a bit and then turn eastward, climbing up an uncertain road that cuts along the ridge of Wadi Zarqa Ma’in. This breathtaking wadi is one of many that plunge down from the Mishor, our destination, toward the Jordan Rift Valley.
The ascent through sandstone studded with basalt protrusions is unfamiliar to Israelis used to the lissan marl, dolomite, and limestone rocks of the Judean Desert, west of the Dead Sea. At times, the ground looks littered with millions of dark debris sherds, and hot springs bubble up from the region clearly marked by volcanic activity. This all belonged to Reuben, but it is hard to imagine an ancient people making much use of this stark landscape. It was majestic and primal, defining the western boundary of the Mishor as a forbidding, dark escarpment. If this had been the only way to access Canaan, then Reuben and Gad would have been entirely cut off from any contact with the other tribes. We know, though, that traffic passed between the two sides of the Jordan through the more moderate and traversable northern plains of the Jordan Valley.
Up, up we climb, until the low hills of the southern Mishor open generously before us. This is not yet the classic flat plateau that Reuben and Gad so desired and that we are expecting; rather, the southern Mishor was built of gentle hills of grain on a land cut through with frighteningly deep canyons of wadis. We saw the impressive Wadi Zarqa Ma’in on our ascent up from the Dead Sea to the Mishor; now we head south to inspect the majestic gorge of Wadi el-Mujib, the Arnon riverbed, which marks the natural border between Reuben and the Kingdom of Moab.
Gazing out from the well-tended lookout station, we observe the steep slopes which form the wadi and are indented with frequent caves. From here, it is possible to glimpse the ruins of biblical Aroer, which sat on the northern ridge of the Arnon and marked the southernmost city allotted to Gad.61Numbers 32:34. See Joshua 13:16 and I Chronicles 5:8 for testimony that Aroer was in the naĥalah of Reuben.
Such dramatic vistas remind us that the landscape of Naĥalot Reuven ve-Gad was not uniform, and that Reuben’s southern flank was quite dramatic compared to the placid northern Mishor.
As with the arresting cliffs on the east of Reuben’s naĥalah, the Arnon gorge brings pause. Reflection on the broad span of this tribe’s portion, mainly calm but decidedly dramatic at times, evokes associations with the character of Reuben. How delightful that the calm and fertile Mishor, which made up the bulk of this tribe’s naĥalah, can be considered to reflect Reuben’s pragmatic side (“The land that the Lord has conquered for the congregation of Israel is cattle country – and your servants have cattle! It would be a favor to us if this land were given to your servants”62Numbers 32:4–5.). That the southern terrain of this naĥalah was marked by wilder, less friendly elements awakens remembrances of a certain elusiveness and turmoil that mark the character of Reuben as well.
Just three kilometers (almost two miles) northwest from Aroer is the important Tel Dhiban, confidently identified as the biblical Dibon. Dibon was another city belonging to Gad, yet in the territory of Reuben, demonstrating along with Aroer how closely the two tribes were intermingled.63Ibid. See Joshua 13:17, where Dibon is listed as a city of Reuben, and the discussion above concerning reconciliation between these two narratives. The large tel abuts and even extends into the village of Dhiban, a typical Jordanian rural jumble of poor homes and even poorer urban planning. No signs point to the abandoned tel; it does not sit on a main road and is not regularly visited. For all its contemporary anonymity, Tel Dibon retains the fame of its prized Iron Age remains: massive fortifications, including stretches of a ten-meter-high wall (approx. thirty-three feet high) from the ninth century Bce, and the discovery of the Mesha Stele, the victory inscription commissioned by King Mesha of Moab, who ruled from Dibon, to mark his military successes against the House of Omri, the Israelite king.
This city, unrestored and unremarkable in its present state, was a critical holding of the Moabite kingdom once it was captured from Gad. Mesha had much to boast about his military campaign in this region. He bragged of conquering neighboring Ataroth from the men of Gad, and of reconstituting nearby Aroer, which at one time had belonged to the Israelites. In this southern swath of Naĥalat Reuven, we see the constant tensions at play between the Moabites and the Israelites, as well as the emergent dominance of Gad as the central Israelite presence in the Mishor.
From Dibon north into the heartland of Reuben, the appeal of the landscape is clear. Grazing lands and wheat fields abound. And of course the ancient King’s Highway ran straight through this plain – Dibon and Medeba were both stations on that critical route. The next three cities that we visit – Medeba, Heshbon, and Nebo, all cities of Reuben – have abundant, flat fields, typifying the Mishor.
Medeba is most famous for its Byzantine-era mosaic floor map of the Holy Land, focusing on a detailed Jerusalem. Its history is much more ancient, though, mentioned alongside Heshbon and Dibon in Sihon the Amorite’s taunt song mocking Moab’s resounding defeat.64Numbers 21:30. After the Israelite victory over Sihon, the city, or at least its environs, was explicitly handed over to Reuben.65Joshua 13:16.
Israel’s hegemony over the Mishor’s central city seems to have been relatively short-lived. By the time of David, the area was no longer firmly in Israelite hands. In his days, the fields around Medeba saw battle between the Ammonites (with the help of their hired Aramean armies) and the Israelites.66I Chronicles 19:6–7. Years later (in the days of Omri, in the ninth century Bce), Medeba was again conquered by the Israelites.67Mesha Stele, lines 7–8. Shortly afterward, the city fell back to its original owner, Moab, as claimed by King Mesha from nearby Dibon68Ibid., lines 29–30. and corroborated by the prophet Isaiah in his ominous vision concerning Moab.69Isaiah 15:2. One of present-day Medeba’s choice lodgings is even named the Moab Land Hotel, saluting the bygone nation that once ruled here. Other than the famous mosaic map, there is not much to see in Medeba, the ancient city hidden underneath the modern one.
Just nine kilometers (approx. five and a half miles) north of Medeba sits Tel Hisban, identified as the biblical city of Heshbon. Little archaeological evidence supports a vibrant Amorite city in the Late Bronze period, yet the toponymic and textual clues indicate a strong likelihood that the famed city – once Moabite, then Amorite, then Israelite, then finally Moabite again – was located here. Wadi Hisban (Naĥal Ĥeshbon), with some active springs, passed to the east of the city. Nothing more of Reuben was to be found to the north, as Wadi Hisban marked the northern border of the naĥalah.
Our last stop is Mount Nebo, on the hills west of Heshbon. Every Israeli schoolchild knows of Nebo, even if it remains an elusive destination for most Jews. This is, after all, the site of Moses’s death. The ancient town of Nebo (identified with Khirbet el-Mukhayyat), held by Reuben70Numbers 32:38; I Chronicles 5:8. and conquered by Mesha in the ninth century BCE, was immortalized in the Mesha Stele:
And Kemosh said to me, “Go! Seize Nebo against Israel.” So I proceeded by night and fought with it from the crack of dawn to midday, and I took it and I slew all of them: seven thousand men and boys, and women and maidens because I had dedicated it to Ashtar Kemosh. I took [the ves-]sels of Y-H-W-H, and I dragged them before Kemosh.
Mesha Stele, lines 14–18
This stronghold of Moab was later cursed by both Isaiah and Jeremiah, and was destined to lie forever in ruins as a testament to the divine punishment of that cursed nation.71Isaiah 15:1–2; Jeremiah 48:1, 21–22. Nothing much of Nebo remains today, a triumph of the prophet Isaiah:
Over Nebo and Medeba, Moab is wailing;
On every head is baldness, every beard is shorn.
Isaiah 15:2
Even though Mount Nebo is tangential to the day’s objective, a visit to the church at its peak is a must, if only for the perspective afforded by the lookout. It remains impossible to prove that Moses gazed out from specifically this hilltop as opposed to any other of the various options surrounding us. Never mind: the poignancy for the modern Jew is acute. He or she views exactly what Moses saw during his last aching moments in this world: the vista of the Plains of Moab, the Jordan Valley, and the Judean Desert splayed before him. The text expanded Moses’s range of vision far beyond the possible; our earthly eyes can take in only the natural elements of what can be seen from this lookout:
Moses went up from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan; all Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; the whole land of Judah as far as the Western Sea; the Negev; and the Plain – the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees – as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will assign it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.”
Deuteronomy 34:1–4
A few short hours later, and we can pass through border control into the sovereign State of Israel. Moses, however, was destined to remain forever on the other side of the river – still embraced by his brethren, the two tribes who both laid claim to his burial place, but outside the established, cherished borders of the Land of Israel.
One can make a successful daytrip to Jordan to better understand the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad. Visitors immediately recognize the Mishor landscape; they have been anticipating this prairie from their readings of the Bible and delight in how the terrain remains true to the textual description. Now they grasp the topographical significance of the wadis that have been referenced repeatedly in the Bible: the Jabbok, Heshbon, and Arnon shape the terrain of ancient cities that now assume some form in their minds. Crumbling tels such as Dibon and Deir ‘Alla (Succoth) hold the scant remains of important cities, poignant to the visitors who wish, for just a moment, to cling to the hoary memories of tribes that have been lost to the Jewish people for many centuries. It is a stronger sense of poignancy than one might feel visiting the naĥalot of the other lost tribes to the west of the Jordan, for modern Israel has been rejuvenated within their lands. Reuben and Gad, by contrast, remain relics of a fallen Israel. For a moment, visitors to Dibon, Succoth, Heshbon, and Medeba can dust off, examine, and treasure the memories of these tribes.