Verse 6. - Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave. Theodoret makes the tribes which received their inheritance through Moses the types of the believing Jews, and those who received it through Jesus (Joshua) the types of the believing Gentiles. Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh were the first born of their respective mothers, and were thus types of the Jews, who were God's firstborn. As they passed over armed before their brethren, so we received the good tidings of salvation from the lips of Jews. This is a characteristic specimen of the allegorical interpretation of the early fathers. But it will be observed that the children of Bilhah, who might have been selected more naturally than those of Zilpah, are entirely omitted.

12:1-6 Fresh mercies must not drown the remembrance of former mercies, nor must the glory of the present instruments of good to the church diminish the just honour of those who went before them, since God is the same who wrought by both. Moses gave to one part of Israel a very rich and fruitful country, but it was on the outside of Jordan. Joshua gave to all Israel the holy land, within Jordan. So the law has given to some few of God's spiritual Israel worldly blessings, earnests of good things to come; but our Lord Jesus, the true Joshua, provided for all the children of promise spiritual blessings, and the heavenly Canaan.Them did Moses the servant of the Lord, and the children of Israel, smite,.... That is, the inhabitants of those kingdoms they smote with the edge of the sword, and took possession of them, the history of which see in Numbers 21:1,

and Moses the servant of the Lord gave it; the whole dominion of the two kings before mentioned:

for a possession unto the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh: of which grant, and the conditions of it, see Numbers 32:1.