Here are the words: "And this land, which we possessed at that time, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, and half Mount Gilead, and the cities thereof, _gave I unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites_. And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, _gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh_; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.... And _I gave_ Gilead unto Machir. And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites _I gave_ from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon.... And I commanded you at that time, saying, _The Lord your God hath given you this land to possess it_:"--not a word about their having asked it--"ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war. But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle (for I know that ye have much cattle), shall abide in your cities _which I have given you_; until the Lord have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and until they also possess the land which the Lord your God hath given them beyond Jordan; and then shall ye return every man unto his possession, which I have given you."
In our studies on the book of Numbers, we have dwelt upon certain facts connected with the settlement of the two tribes and a half, proving that they were below the mark of the Israel of God in choosing their inheritance any where short of the other side of Jordan; but in the passage we have just quoted, there is no allusion at all to this side of the question, because the object of Moses is to set before the whole congregation the exceeding goodness, loving-kindness, and faithfulness of God, not only in bringing them through all the difficulties and dangers of the wilderness, but also in giving them, even already, such signal victories over the Amorites, and putting them in possession of regions so attractive and so suited to them. In all this, he is laying down the solid basis of Jehovah's claim upon their hearty obedience to His commandments; and we can at once see and appreciate the moral beauty of overlooking entirely, in such a rehearsal, the question as to whether Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh were wrong in stopping short of the land of promise. It is, to every devout Christian, a striking proof, not only of the touching and exquisite grace of God, but also of the divine perfectness of Scripture.
No doubt, every true believer enters upon the study of Scripture with the full and deeply wrought conviction of its absolute perfectness in every part. He reverently believes that there is not, from the opening of Genesis to the close of Revelation, a single flaw, a single hitch, a single discrepancy--not one; all is as perfect as its divine Author.