The " blessing" of Reuben by the departing lawgiver is a passage which has severely exercised translators and commentators. Strictly translated as they stand in the received Hebrew text, the words are as follows:
"Let Reuben live, anrt not die, Aud let his meu be a [small] number."
As to the first line there appears to be no doubt, but the second line has been interpreted in two exactly opposite ways. 1. By the Sept.,
"And let his men be many in number." This has the disadvantage that ISC1? is never em- ployed elsewhere for a large number, but always for a small one (e. g. 1 Chron. xvi, 19 ; Job xvi, 22 ; Isa. x, 19 ; Ezek. xii, 16). 2. That of our own A. V.,
"And let not his men be few."' Here the negative of the first line is presumed to convey its force to the second, though not there expressed. This is countenanced by the ancient Syriac version (Peshito) and the translations of Junius and Tremellius, and Schott and Winzer. It also has the important support of Ge- senius (Thesaur. p. 968 a, and Pent. Sam. p. 44). It is, however, a very violent rendering. 3. A third and very ingenious interpretation is that adopted by the Veneto- Greek version, and also by Michaelis (Bibel fur Unge- lekrten, Text), which assumes that the vowel-points of the word T^'?, "his men," should be altered to IT'S, " his dead" —
"And let his dead be few" — as if in allusion to some recent mortality in the tribe, such as that in Simeon after the plague of Baal-peor. These interpretations, unless the last should prove to be the original reading, originate in the fact that the words in their naked sense convey a curse, and not a blessing. Fortunately, though differing widely in de- tail, they agree in general meaning. The benediction of the great leader goes out over the tribe which was about to separate itself from its brethren, in a fervent aspiration for its welfare through all the risks of that remote and trying situation. Both in this and the earlier blessing of Jacob, Reuben retains his place at the head of the family, and it must not be overlooked that the tribe, together with the two who associated themselves with it, actually received its inheritance be- fore either Judah or Ephraim, to whom the birthright which Reuben had forfeited was transferred (1 Chron. v, 1).
From this time it seems as if a bar, not only the ma- terial one of distance, and of the intervening river and mountain-wall, but also of difference in feeling and hab- its, gradually grew up more substantially between the Eastern and Western tribes. The first act of the for- mer after the completion of the conquest, and after they
had taken part in the solemn ceremonial in the valley between Ebal and Gerizim, shows how wide a gap al- ready existed between their ideas and those of the Western tribes. The pile of stones which they erected on the western bank of the Jordan to mark their boun- dary— to testify to after-ages that, though separated by the rushing river from their brethren and the country in which Jehovah had fixed the place where he would be worshipped, they had still a right to return to it for his worship — was erected in accordance with the unal- terable habits of Bedouin tribes both before and "since. It was an act identical with that in which Laban and Jacob engaged at parting, with that which is constant- ly performed by the Bedouin of the present day. But by the Israelites west of Jordan, who were fast relin- quishing their nomad habits and feelings for those of more settled permanent life, this act was completely misunderstood, and was construed into an attempt to set up a rival altar to that of the sacred tent. The in- compatibility of the idea to the mind of the Western Israelites is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding the disclaimer of the two and a half tribes, and not- withstanding that disclaimer having proved satisfac- tory even to Phinehas, the author of Joshua xxii re- tains the name mizbeach for the pile, a word which in- volves the idea of sacrifice — i. e. of slaughter (see Ge- senius, Thesaur. p. 402) — instead of applying to it the term gal, as is done in the case (Gen. xxxi, 46) of the precisely similar " heap of witness." Another Reuben- itish erection, which long kept up the memory of the presence of the tribe on the west of Jordan, was the stone of Bohan ben-Reuben which formed a landmark on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Josh. xv, 6). This was a single stone (Ebeii), not a pile, and it appears to have stood somewhere on the road from Bethany to Jericho, not far from the ruined khan so well known to travellers.
The doom, " Thou shalt not excel," was exactly ful- filled in the destinies of the tribe descended from Reu- ben, which makes no figure in the Hebrew history, and never produced any eminent person. No judge, no prophet, no hero of the tribe of Reuben is handed down to us, unless it be "Adina the Reubenite, a captain of the Reubenites, and thirty with him" (1 Chron. xi, 42). In the dire extremity of their brethren in the north under Deborah and Barak, they contented themselves with debating the news among the streams (532) of the Mishor. The distant distress of his brethren could not move Reuben : he lingered among his sheepfolds, and preferred the shepherd's pipe and the bleating of the flocks to the clamor of the trumpet and the turmoil of battle. His individuality fades more rapidly than Gad's. The eleven valiant Gadites who swam the Jor- dan at its highest, to join the son of Jesse in his trouble (1 Chron. xii, 8-15) ; Barzillai ; Elijah the Gileadite ; the siege of Ramoth-gilead, with its picturesque inci- dents— all give a substantial reality to the tribe and country of Gad. But no person, no incident, is recorded to place Reuben before us in any distincter form than as a member of the community (if community it can be called) of " the Reubenites. the Gadites, and the half- tribe of Manasseh" (ver. 37). The very towns of his inheritance — Heshbon, Aroer, Kirjathaim, Dibon, Baal- meon, Sibmah, Jazer — are familiar to us as Moabitish, and not as Israelitish, towns. The city life so charac- teristic of Moabitish civiHzation had no hold on the Reubenites. They are most in their element when en- gaged in continual broils with the children of the des- ert, the Bedouin tribes of Hagar, Jetur, Nephish, No- dab; driving off their myriads of cattle, asses, cam- els; dwelling in their tents, as if to the manner born (v, 10), gradualhy spreading over the vast wilderness which extends from Jordan to the Euphrates (ver. 9), and every day receding further and further from any community of feeling or of interest with the Western tribes. See Moab. Thus remote from the central seat