Tribe of Reuben

The Tribe of Reuben (ראובן, Standard Hebrew Rəʾuven, Tiberian Hebrew Rəʾûḇēn) is one of the Hebrew tribes, founded by Reuben son of Jacob. At the Exodus numbered 46,500 male adults, from twenty years old and upwards (Num. 1:20, 21), and at the close of the wilderness\nwanderings they numbered only 43,730 (26:7). This tribe united\nwith that of Gad in asking permission to settle in the "land of\nGilead," "on the other side of Jordan" (32:1-5). The lot\nassigned to Reuben was the smallest of the lots given to the\ntrans-Jordanic tribes. It extended from the Arnon, in the south\nalong the coast of the Dead Sea to its northern end, where the\nJordan flows into it (Josh. 13:15-21, 23). It thus embraced the\noriginal kingdom of Sihon. Reuben is "to the eastern tribes what\nthe Tribe of Simeon is to the western. 'Unstable as water,' he vanishes away\ninto a mere Arabian tribe. 'His men are few;' it is all he can\ndo 'to live and not die.' We hear of nothing beyond the\nmultiplication of their cattle in the land of Gilead, their\nspoils of 'camels fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand' (1\nChr. 5:9, 10, 20, 21). In the great struggles of the nation he\nnever took part. The complaint against him in the song of\nDeborah is the summary of his whole history. 'By the streams of\nReuben,' i.e., by the fresh streams which descend from the\neastern hills into the Jordan and the Dead Sea, on whose banks\nthe Bedouin chiefs met then as now to debate, in the 'streams'\nof Reuben great were the 'desires'", i.e., resolutions which\nwere never carried out, the people idly resting among their\nflocks as if it were a time of peace (Judg. 5:15, 16). Stanley's\nSinai and Palestine. All the three tribes on the east of Jordan at length fell into\ncomplete apostasy, and the time of retribution came. God\n"stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria, and the spirit\nof Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria," to carry them away, the\nfirst of the tribes, into captivity (1 Chr. 5:25, 26). Reuben, Tribe of