"28 So Moses gave command concerning them to Eleazar the priest and to Joshua the son of Nun and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the people of Israel. 29 And Moses said to them, “If the people of Gad and the people of Reuben, every man who is armed to battle before the Lord, will pass with you over the Jordan and the land shall be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. 30 However, if they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.” 31 And the people of Gad and the people of Reuben answered, “What the Lord has said to your servants, we will do. 32 We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us beyond the Jordan.”
33 And Moses gave to them, to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben and to the half-tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land and its cities with their territories, the cities of the land throughout the country. 34 And the people of Gad built Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer, 35 Atroth-shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah, 36 Beth-nimrah and Beth-haran, fortified cities, and folds for sheep. 37 And the people of Reuben built Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim, 38 Nebo, and Baal-meon (their names were changed), and Sibmah. And they gave other names to the cities that they built. 39 And the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and captured it, and dispossessed the Amorites who were in it. 40 And Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh, and he settled in it. 41 And Jair the son of Manasseh went and captured their villages, and called them Havvoth-jair. 42 And Nobah went and captured Kenath and its villages, and called it Nobah, after his own name."
Numbers 32:28-42
Another lesson we may gather from this incident is this: the same factors that hinder people in spiritual life are those that keep others out of the kingdom of God. One thinks readily of the rich young ruler: he stood at the very gates, so to speak, of the Promised Land, viewing it and being inexpressibly drawn to it. But love of the world held him back from entering in, and he went away sorrowful. We do not know whether an absolute distinction can be made between those who are irreconcilably opposed to the message of the gospel and those whose hearts have been divided within themselves, one part of them longing for the blessings of its peace, the other resisting and holding back because of the claims of the world. But both, sadly, may end in the same way, without Christ and without hope for time or eternity. But when we think of how suddenly God can cut men off from the little, paltry things that blind their eyes to the eternal world, we should realise that none of these things, whatever they are, are worth the price we often pay for them, in term of spiritual values. Sometimes it is a way of life that keeps men from the true riches, and a whole way of life may need to be radically changed, and this is what would have been involved for the rich young ruler, and plainly it was something he was not prepared to face. Ah, a way of life can very soon pass away: how tragic then, to be clinging stubbornly to it until it slips through our nerveless fingers. How much better to cast it aside resolutely, in order to lay hold on eternal life!