Joshua 13:15

"And Moses gave unto the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their families. And their border was from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the plain by Medeba; Heshbon, and all its cities that are in the plain: Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon, and Jahaz, and Kedemoth, and Mephaath, and Kiriathaim, and Sibmah, and Zereth-shahar in the mount of the valley, and Beth-peor, and the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth-jeshimoth, and all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses smote with the chiefs of Midian, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the princes of Sihon, that dwelt in the land. Balaam also the son-of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among the rest of the slain. And the border of the children of Reuben was the Jordan, and the border thereof. This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben, according to their families, the cities and the villages thereof."

This material is an expansion of Numbers 32:33-42; and this location of Reuben east of the Jordan was discussed in Vol. 3 of our Pentateuchal series under that reference. There we learned that Israel actually took possession of that land; "But in the reigns of the wicked Omri and Ahab, the power of Israel declined; and, following the battle of Ramoth-Gilead and the defeat and death of Ahab, the Moabites succeeded in shaking off the Israelitish yoke and even recovering a portion of Sihon's former kingdom."[23]

Due to the uncertainty regarding the identity of some of the places mentioned here, we cannot now precisely outline the territory of Reuben; but, as Morton said, "Essentially, it was as follows:"[24] the Arnon river was the south boundary; on the north the boundary was the Wadi Hesban; on the west was the Jordan river and the Dead Sea; and on the east was an indefinite boundary marked by the edge of the desert.

The tragic story of Reuben was summarized this way by Cook:

"The Reubenites became much intermixed afterward with the Moabites, who, in fact, later acquired much of their land, and several, if not all of the cities mentioned in this passage"[25]

It was the shameful worship of Baal as promulgated by the daughters of Moab in the disaster at Baal-Peor that proved to be very attractive to the Israelites; and it must be accepted as very probable that this was precisely the thing that, in the end, destroyed Reuben, whose tribe was the very first to go into captivity. (See my comments on this in the parallel text in Numbers.)

"Bamoth-baal ... Beth-baal ... etc." (Joshua 13:17). Note the predominance of the name of the Moabitish god, "Baal" in these place-names. These "high places were probably so-called from the altars that were erected on hills for the impure worship of this Canaanite Priapus."[26] This pagan god was the god of gardens, fertility, and procreation. His worship was an excuse for lewdness, lustfulness, and persistent, morbid and excessive sexual excitement.[27]

Beth-peor is the place where Israel received Moses' farewell address (Deuteronomy 3:29); here Balaam uttered one of his prophesies (Numbers 23:28); "It was also in easy reach of Shittim, where Israel followed Baal-peor (Numbers 25:3)."[28] Woudstra also thought that the inclusion a moment later in the sacred text of an account of Balaam's death might have been intended as an indirect warning to the Reubenites. This is certainly possible.

(For full comment on Balaam and his efforts to curse Israel, see our discussion of this in Vol. 3 of the Pentateuchal series, pp. 459-488.)