¹ sn The name may have been given to the tribes that roamed between the Euphrates and the lands east of the Jordan. These are possibly the nomadic Kaldu who are part of the ethnic Aramaeans. The LXX simply has “horsemen.”

¹ tn Heb “and from [it is probably preferable to read “to” here] the clans of the sons of Kohath and there were the cities of their territory from the tribe of Ephraim.”

¹ tn Heb “and from across the Jordan at Jericho, on the east of the Jordan, from the tribe of Reuben.” The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn Heb “and from the half of the tribe of Manasseh, Aner and its pasturelands and Bileam and its pasturelands to the clan, to the sons of Kohath who were left.”

² tn Heb “Is it better for you to be priest for the house of one man or for you to be priest for a tribe, for a clan in Israel?”

¹ tn Heb “ten leaders with him, one leader, one leader for a paternal house, for all the tribes of Israel, and each a head of the house of their father, they belong to the clans of Israel.”

¹ tn Heb “your brothers” (also in vv. 4, 7), but this does not refer to siblings or necessarily even to relatives. It refers to the Israelites of the remaining tribes.

¹ tc The MT reads “Judah, the Jordan”; the LXX omits “Judah.” Perhaps there was a town named Judah, distinct from the tribe of Judah, located near the northern end of the Jordan.

¹ tn The MT reads “with him,” which is problematic, since the reference would be to the other half of the tribe of Manasseh (not the half mentioned in v. 7).

¹ sn Aroer. Now known as ʿAraʾir on the northern edge of the Arnon river, Aroer marked the southern limit of Moab and, later, of the allotment of the tribe of Reuben (Josh 13:9, 16).

¹ sn The breakdown of ch. 26 for outlining purposes will be essentially according to the tribes of Israel. The format and structure is similar to the first census, and so less comment is necessary here.

¹ sn The tribe of Judah is listed first. It seems that it had already achieved a place of prominence based on the patriarchal promise of the Messiahship in Judah (Gen 49:10).

⁴ tc The Hebrew text has אַלְפֵי (ʾalfe, “thousands of”). There is some question over this reading in the MT, however. The community groups that have these leaders were larger tribes, but there is little certainty about the size of the divisions.

² sn The twelve names were those of Israel’s sons. The idea was not the remembrance of the twelve sons as such, but the twelve tribes that bore their names.

¹ tn Although this is normally translated “Israelites,” here a more literal translation is clearer because it refers to the names of the twelve tribes—the actual sons of Israel.

¹ sn These are the leaders of the tribes who represented all the people. Later, after the exodus, Moses will select the most capable of them and others to be rulers in a judicial sense (Exod 18:21).

⁶ sn Tubal was the ancestor of militaristic tribes that lived north of the Black Sea. For a discussion of ancient references to Tubal see E. M. Yamauchi, Foes from the Northern Frontier (SBA), 24-26.

¹ sn For the second time (see v. 18) the text informs the reader of the relationship between Ham and Canaan. Genesis 10 will explain that Canaan was the ancestor of the Canaanite tribes living in the promised land.

² sn The western tribes here imagine a possible motive for the action of the eastern tribes. T. C. Butler explains the significance of the land’s “impurity”: “East Jordan is impure because it is not Yahweh’s possession. Rather it is simply ‘your possession.’ That means it is land where Yahweh does not live, land which his presence has not sanctified and purified” (Joshua [WBC], 247).

¹ tc The MT does not mention the departures of the northerly and westerly tribes. The Greek text completes the description by adding them, making a full schedule of the departure of the groups of tribes. The Greek is not likely to be original, however, since it carries all the signs of addition to complete the text, making a smooth, full reading. The MT is to be preferred; it apparently used two of the groups to give the idea.