The Transjordanians, dismissed by their Commander Joshua with a most honorable sending-away, whence also
(col. 1255)
[…were dismissed with a most honorable sending-away, whence also] whither they went, the text explains (v. 9) thus: “And the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Silo, which is in Chanaan, to enter Galaad, the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses” — that is, “through Moses.” For a thousand times in the Scriptures, [for] something “to be done in the hand of” someone, is [for it] “to be done through him.” The command was the Lord’s, but the ministry was Moses’s: the one [is], as Josephus says (bk. 4, ch. 8), στρατηγός [stratēgos, “commander, general”], the other ὑποστράτηγος [hypostratēgos, “sub-commander, lieutenant”]: the one [the] Lord [Master], the other [the] servant — as [is] so often said in this chapter (vv. 2, 4, & 5), concerning which [see] ch. 1, q. 2.
“Galaad” is taken in Scripture in two ways. First, particularly [specifically] — and that [in] three [ways]. 1. For a mountain, concerning which [see] Gen. 31:48; Jer. 8 & 22. 2. For a city at almost the very foot of that mountain, concerning which Num. 32:39. 3. For the little region which stretches from that mountain all the way to the Jordan, and is called “Galaaditis,” concerning which Josephus (bk. 1 of the Antiquities, ch. 27). [It] is taken, secondly, generally — for this whole little region, and together for the whole land of the Moabites and Amorites, which Kings Sehon and Og once held: and thus here these three tribes are said to have entered “Galaad, the land of their possession” (also v. 14).
But while [they] were journeying thither, [they] built in the very way an altar, concerning which two [things] are related (v. 10). 1. Where — “at the mounds [banks] of the Jordan” [ad tumulos Iordanis], that is, among the ramparts [aggeres] or mounds which, cast in [their] way, checked the flowing-down waters of the Jordan, concerning which above, ch. 18. In the Seventy [LXX] here, and a little before (v. 11), [it] is γαλααδ [galaad] — a Hebrew word indeed, but corrupt, [standing] for γαλιλώθ [galilōth], or γαλααλώθ [galaalōth], as [it] is in the Royal Bibles [the Antwerp Polyglot]; for which word Symmachus said τὰ ὅρια [ta horia], that is, “limits [boundaries],” and “bounds,” as above in [the comment on] Hebr. [i.e. Joshua] ch. 13, v. 2. Josephus [has] ὑπὲρ τῆς ὄχθης [hyper tēs ochthēs], “on the bank of the Jordan.” But some think — and Sederholam suggests (ch. 11), and Josephus himself (bk. 5, ch. 1) — [that] those mounds, and consequently the altar built on them, were on the other bank of the Jordan, toward the East; but [it] is otherwise. For therefore [it] is added (v. 10) “in the land of Chanaan,” and (v. 14) in Hebrew “in the crossing” [in transitu], or “on the side [flank] of the children of Israel” — as Arias [Montanus], Masius, Adrichomius, Abulensis (q. 7 & 12), and others recognize. 2. Of what kind was this altar? “Of immense” — says our text — “size.” For a great, and very lofty, magnitude is signified by the Hebrew phrase, which says “that the altar was great to behold”; just as the Greek also says βωμὸν μέγαν τοῦ ἰδεῖν [bōmon megan tou idein, “an altar great to behold”].
[It] was great. In the Lord’s tabernacle [there] was the altar of holocausts (Exod. 27), where its magnitude is reckoned by the larger cubits, as Arias explains in [his] Tubalcain and [his] book On the sacred fabrics [furnishings]; yet because such an epithet is never attributed to it [the Mosaic altar], [it] appears [that] this [altar of the tribes] was greater than that: and because [it] was raised among the mounds [banks], [it was] much more conspicuous. And these are the stones concerning which Gregory Nazianzen [speaks] in the Apologeticus, when he says: “To us [there] is no limit set of teaching and learning — just as [there was] to those tribes [for whom there were] those stones: formerly to these [tribes] who were beyond the Jordan, and to these who were on this side of the Jordan.” Where, when the Scholiast Gabriel Eugubinus had understood those [to be] the stones concerning which above (ch. 4), yet did not see [it] to square sufficiently, [he] added: “Let him solve [it], who can.”