"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
But there is another lesson also, that we may draw from this story, linked to the idea of lack of enthusiasm and wholeheartedness. For such an attitude leads to a double life, in which we deceive ourselves, and in which we lead ourselves into an attitude of compromise, which is a living lie. Reuben said one thing: but he meant another. His concern for his little ones, however genuine in itself it may have been, was only an excuse to hide his carnal de- sire for the plains of Gilead. And this is what happens in spiritual life. We tell ourselves, and others, one thing: but the real reasons for not going over Jordan are different. The tragedy is that the real reasons become hidden from us, and they no longer remain conscious in our minds. This is how the unhappy, unsatisfactory and spiritually barren state of compromise comes to pass, in which it is quite possible to pay lip service to the call of God, yet live at odds with it, to be 'under arms', it may be, and fighting the battles of the Lord, as Reuben was intending to do, but not with a full, unreserved commitment, and on a different footing from real warriors of God. Do such people really think that no one has discerned that this is how it is with them? Do they really think that such a compromising position, however subtly dis- guised, can be hidden? Why, it rings in their very voice: it cannot be concealed, for there is something in the very nature of the warfare itself that serves to expose anything less than full and wholehearted surrender. Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had not wholly followed the Lord: that is what the chapter is about, and it asks us this searching question: Have we been, are we, wholly following the Lord, or have we, secretly, opted for a lesser standard, a less rigorous, less demanding challenge?
Let us not forget Moses' words in 23. 'Be sure your sin will find you out' not, be it not- ed, 'your sin will be found out,' but something more serious it will find you out, search you out, hunt you out, be your destroyer. The plains of Gilead cost Reuben dearly in the end. Compromise always does.