THE FINAL ARRANGEMENT
I. REUBEN AND GAD DO NOT RESENT THE LANGUAGE OF MOSES. This is all the more noticeable because the language is so strong and humiliating. They seem to admit that his reproaches, his warnings, and his predictions had been only too clearly justified by their conduct. Learn from this that when there is occasion to express righteous anger, one must not begin to take counsel with the shallow maxims of worldly prudence. There is need in the service of God for great common sense, for far more of it than usually finds exercise, but there is no common sense where courage, straightforwardness, and the manly assertion of all Christian principles are absent. It is a very foolish thing to use strong language just by way of liberating the effervescence of the soul. But when strong language is deserved and the occasion demands the utterance of it, then do not spare. Moses might have said to himself, "This is a very ticklish state of affairs; if I do not humour these people they will certainly act according to their desire, whether I consent or not." Some leaders and so-called skilful managers and tacticians would have humoured Reuben and Gad at such a crisis as this. But it was not for Moses to humour anybody, or trifle with men who were trifling with God. And he had his immediate reward. "They came near unto him" (Numbers 32:16). You can see them almost cringing before Moses, fawning upon him in their eagerness to get their requests. His eye has pierced into their mean hearts, and they know it. They have not one word of defense to offer, not one protest against being so hardly dealt with. Learn then from the example of Moses here, and of Paul on more than one occasion, how to speak out when silence, or, what is worse, delicate picking and choosing of words, involves unfaithfulness to God. We must never be coarse, vindictive, abusive, or spiteful; but if we have a genuine concern for the good of men and the glory of God, he will put as it were his own word into our lips, so controlling language, tone, and features that it will be what his word always is, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
II. BUT THOUGH THEY DO NOT RESENT THE REBUKE OF MOSES, THEY HOLD TO THEIR ORIGINAL PURPOSE. So confident are they that they call this much-coveted ]and their inheritance. They cannot but feel the probing force of what Moses has said, but they are also quick to notice what he has omitted to say. If they had put their thoughts into speech they would have run somewhat like this: "He has been a shepherd himself, a practical man in flocks and herds, and of course he knows nicely that these lands for which we ask are just the place for our cattle. We shall hold to our choice, though it may involve a little more trouble and delay than we could have wished." Even when men are made to smart under a just, unanswerable rebuke they keep to their darling projects. They do not believe in their hearts, even though Christ says it, that one cannot serve God and mammon. Reuben and Gad mean to try the experiment of living east of Jordan, and yet keeping their place in the unity and the privileges of Israel.
III. THEY PROPOSE A RASH AND DIFFICULT COMPROMISE. The more we consider what they undertook to do, the more also we see their short-sighted policy. Mark their overweening self-confidence. They cannot risk the chance—which was indeed no chance at all, but a Divine certainty—of finding suitable pastures in Canaan, but they are quite willing to risk their families and flocks in fenced cities of the land they had chosen. Yet on their own admission fenced cities were no adequate security. The fighting men among them were going across Jordan to help in conquering a ]and where, as had been reported to their fathers, the cities were walled and very great (Numbers 13:28). There appears in their resolution a curious mixture of reasonable faith and rash self-confidence. They have learned enough to assure them that Canaan will be conquered, and they are quite ready to believe that in some unaccountable way their own dearest possessions will also be safe. Yet they did not really know how long they were to be absent. It seems to have been several years before they were allowed to return, and when they did return it was not with the unmingled self-congratulations which might have been expected. He who would ]earn how disastrous their choice turned out in the end must carefully consider Joshua 22:1-34. Most assuredly, whatever Reuben and Gad gained in pastures they more than lost in their permanent isolation from their brethren.—Y.