The generations of the sons of Reuben, the oldest son of Israel, were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over, who was able to go to war; Forty-six thousand, five hundred of the tribe of Reuben were numbered.

These are the families of the Reubenites: their number was forty-three thousand, seven hundred and thirty.

Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a great number of cattle: and when they saw that the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead was a good place for cattle; The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the meeting, read more. Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon, The land which the Lord gave into the hands of the children of Israel, is a land for cattle, and your servants have cattle. And they said, With your approval, let this land be given to your servants as their heritage: do not take us over Jordan.

And Moses gave their heritage to the tribe of Reuben by their families. Their limit was from Aroer, on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land by Medeba; read more. Heshbon and all her towns in the table-land; Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon; And Jahaz, and Kedemoth, and Mephaath; And Kiriathaim, and Sibmah, and Zereth-shahar in the mountain of the valley; And Beth-peor, and the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth-jeshimoth; And all the towns of the table-land, and all the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, whom Moses overcame, together with the chiefs of Midian, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the chiefs of Sihon, who were living in the land.

And the limit of the children of Reuben was the edge of Jordan. This was the heritage of the children of Reuben by their families, with its towns and its unwalled places.

Your chiefs, Issachar, were with Deborah; and Naphtali was true to Barak; into the valley they went rushing out at his feet. In Reuben there were divisions, and great searchings of heart. Why did you keep quiet among the sheep, hearing nothing but the watchers piping to the flocks?

And to the east his limits went as far as the starting point of the waste land, ending at the river Euphrates, because their cattle were increased in number in the land of Gilead. And in the days of Saul they made war on the Hagarites, and overcame them; and they put up their tents through all the land east of Gilead.

And they were helped against them, so that the Hagarites, and those with them, were given into their power. For they sent up prayers to God in the fight, and he gave ear to them, because they put their faith in him. And they took away their cattle: fifty thousand camels, two hundred and fifty thousand sheep, and two thousand asses, and a hundred thousand men.

And they did evil against the God of their fathers, worshipping the gods of the people of the land, whom God had put to destruction before them. And the God of Israel put an impulse into the heart of Pul, king of Assyria, and of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, who took them away as prisoners, all the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to Halah and Habor and Hara and to the river of Gozan, to this day.