The sons of Manasseh. There is considerable difficulty about the families of this tribe, because they are not recorded in Genesis, while the details preserved in 1 Chronicles 7:14-17 are so obscure and fragmentary as to be extremely perplexing.
According to the present enumeration there were eight families in Manasseh, one named after his son Machir, one after his grandson Gilead, and the rest after his great-grandsons. The list given in Joshua 17:1, Joshua 17:2 agrees with this, except that the Machirites and the Gileadites are apparently identified.
It appears from the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 7:1-40 that the mother of Machir was a stranger from Aram, the country of Laban. This may perhaps account for the fact that Machir's son received the name of Gilead, for Gilead was the border land between Aram and Canaan; it more probably explains the subsequent allotment of territory in that direction to the Machirites (Numbers 32:40).
Gilead appears again as a proper name in 11:2.