After these occurrences some further changes of a fundamental character took place in the relations of the tribes.  The Danites proved unable to hold against the forward pressure of the Philistines their territory on the coast to the west of Benjamin and Ephraim; they accordingly sought a new settlement, which was found in the north at the foot of Hermon.  In this way all the secondary tribes westward of Jordan (Asher, Naphtali, Dan) came to have their seats beside each other in the northern division of the land.  Eastward of Jordan, Reuben rapidly fell from his old prominence, sharing the fate of his next eldest brethren Simeon and Levi.  When Eglon of Moab took Jericho, and laid Benjamin under tribute, it is obvious that he must previously have made himself master of Reuben’s territory.  This territory became thenceforward a subject of constant dispute between Moab and Israel; the efforts to recover it, however, did not proceed from Reuben himself, but from Gad, a tribe which knew how to assert itself with vigour against the enemies by which it was surrounded.  But if the Hebrews lost ground in the south, they materially enlarged their borders in the north of the land eastward of Jordan.  Various Manassite families, finding their holdings at home too small, crossed the Jordan and founded colonies at Bashan and northern Gilead.  Although this colonisation, on account of the rivalry of the Aramaeans, who were also pressing forward in this direction, was but imperfectly successful, it nevertheless was of very great importance, inasmuch as it seemed to give new strength to the bonds that united the eastern with the western tribes.  Not only was Gilead not lost; it even became a very vigorous member of the body politic. 1

***************************** 1.  It is probable that Manasseh’s migration to the territory eastward of Jordan took place from the west, and later than the time of Moses.  The older portions of the Hexateuch speak not of two and a half but only of two trans-Jordanic tribes, and exclude Manasseh; according to them the kingdom of Sihon alone was subdued by Moses, not that of Og also, the latter, indeed, being a wholly legendary personage.  In the song of Deborah, Machir is reckoned among the western tribes, and it was not until much later that this became the designation of the Manassites eastward of Jordan.  It is also worth noticing that Jair’s colonisation of northern Gilead did not take place until the time of the judges (Judges x. 3 seq.), but is related also in Num. xxxii. 39-42. *****************************

The times of agitation and insecurity which followed upon the conquest of Palestine invited attacks by the eastern nomads, and once more the Israelite peasantry showed all its old helplessness, until at last the indignation of a Manassite of good family, Gideon or Jerubbaal, was roused by the Midianites, who had captured some of his brothers and put them to death.  With his family, that of Abiezer, he gave pursuit,