Numbers 32:39-42

The Settlement of certain Manassites in Gilead. This is a fragment relating to a period later than the Mosaic age. Machir was a Manassite clan, and Jair and Nobah (Numbers 32:41 f.) were probably subdivisions of Machir. Manasseh and Ephraim were at first established together on the W. of Jordan by Joshua (Joshua 17:14 f.), and any Manassite occupation of Gilead was probably subsequent to his time.

Numbers 32:39. Gilead: the name, here and in Numbers 32:40, is applied to the country between the Jabbok and the Jarmuk.

Numbers 32:40. This verse (which contains an anachronism) is an interpolation, for in Numbers 32:41 the towns (better tent-villages) thereof are the habitations of the Amorites mentioned in Numbers 32:39, the connexion between these verses being broken by Numbers 32:40.

Numbers 32:41. Jair the son of Manasseh: i.e. the descendant of Manasseh, and, according to Judges 10:3 f., a judge who lived much later than Moses.