And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah.
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| border | גְּב֣וּל ge.Vul | H1366 | properly · noun, common masculine singular construct |
| Reuben | רְאוּבֵ֗ן re.'u.Ven | H7205 | Reuben · proper noun, a man's name |
| east | קָדִ֛ים ka.Dim | H6921 | the fore or front part · noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| side | מִפְּאַ֥ת mi.pe.'At | H6285 | properly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct |
| west | יָ֖מָּה Ya.mah | H3220 | a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · noun, common masculine singular absolute + directional suffix |
| side | פְּאַת pe.'at- | H6285 | properly · noun, common feminine singular construct |
| a | אֶחָֽד 'e.Chad | H259 | properly · cardinal number, feminine singular absolute |
| Judah | יְהוּדָ֥ה ye.hu.Dah | H3063 | Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Reuben--doomed formerly for incest and instability "not to excel" (Gen 49:4). So no distinguished prophet, priest, or king had come from it. Of it were the notorious Dathan and Abiram, the mutineers. A pastoral and Bedouin character marked it and Gad (Jdg 5:16).
Now these are the names of the tribes - See the division mentioned Num 34:7-12, which casts much light upon this.
And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah. Such who "confess" the Lord before men, and "praise" his name for all blessings, temporal and spiritual, they receive from him: these seven tribes already mentioned, as they lay contiguous to each other, and had portions and inheritances alike assigned to them; so they were all of them to the north of the sanctuary and city after mentioned.
The land assigned to the tribes was arranged in strips running east to west through the land, rather than piecemeal as it was before the Exile. This was more than simply a way of ensuring that each tribe received equal access to the various resources of the land. It aligned the land with the sacred east–west axis that was so prominent in the Temple. As in the Temple, the size and shape of the central areas were clearly defined, while those on the margins were less closely determined (see study note on 40:17-19). The four tribes most distant from the central sacred section (Dan, Asher, Naphtali, and Gad), and therefore in the least privileged position, were descended from the four sons of Jac…
Read the whole note in the consoleAnd alongside the border of Dan and alongside the border of Dan to its south.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
