The following is the results of your search for Reuben, Tribe of.
Reuben, Tribe of: At the Exodus numbered 46,500 male adults, from twenty years
old and upwards
(Numbers 1:20,21) and at the close of the wilderness
wanderings they numbered only 43,730
(Numbers 26:7) This tribe united with
that of Gad in asking permission to settle in the "land of Gilead,"
"on the other side of Jordan"
(Numbers 32:1-5) The lot assigned to Reuben
was the smallest of the lots given to the trans-Jordanic tribes. It
extended from the Arnon, in the south along the coast of the Dead Sea
to its northern end, where the Jordan flows into it
(Joshua 13:15-21,23)
It thus embraced the original kingdom of Sihon. Reuben is "to the
eastern tribes what Simeon is to the western. 'Unstable as water,' he
vanishes away into a mere Arabian tribe. 'His men are few;' it is all
he can do 'to live and not die.' We hear of nothing beyond the
multiplication of their cattle in the land of Gilead, their spoils of
'camels fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand'
(1 Chronicles 5:9,10,20,21)
In the great struggles of the nation he never took part. The
complaint against him in the song of Deborah is the summary of his
whole history. 'By the streams of Reuben,' i.e., by the fresh streams
which descend from the eastern hills into the Jordan and the Dead
Sea, on whose banks the Bedouin chiefs met then as now to debate, in
the 'streams' of Reuben great were the 'desires'", i.e., resolutions
which were never carried out, the people idly resting among their
flocks as if it were a time of peace
(Judges 5:15,16) Stanley's Sinai and
Palestine. All the three tribes on the east of Jordan at length fell
into complete apostasy, and the time of retribution came. God
"stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria, and the spirit of
Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria," to carry them away, the first of
the tribes, into captivity
(1 Chronicles 5:25,26)
