Now the Reubenites and the Gadites had a very great number of livestock, and when they saw the land of Jazer and behold, the land of Gilead was a place for livestock,
Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, “Surely the Lord has looked upon my affliction. Now therefore my husband will love me.”
They said to Pharaoh, “We have come to sojourn in the land, for your servants have no pasture for their flocks, because the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please allow your servants to dwell in the land of Goshen.”
In the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, those written by name came and attacked their tents, along with the Meunites who were found there, and utterly destroyed them until this day. Then they dwelt there in their place because there was pasture for their flocks there.
For thus says the Lord to the king’s house of Judah: You are Gilead to Me, and the peak of Lebanon; yet surely I will make you a wilderness and cities which are not inhabited.
O vine of Sibmah, I will weep for you more than the weeping of Jazer. Your plants have stretched over the sea, they reach even to the sea of Jazer. The destroyer has fallen upon your summer fruits and upon your vintage.
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, which live alone in a forest, in the midst of a fertile land; let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
He provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the ruler, he was seated. He came with the heads of the people. He executed the justice of the Lord, and His ordinances with Israel.
Then the Israelites sent Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, to the sons of Reuben, to the sons of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead,
So the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the Israelites at Shiloh in the land of Canaan to go to the land of Gilead, the land of their possession, according to the word of the Lord through Moses.