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The Tribe of Reuben was one of the Tribes of Israel.

At its height, the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
, reaching from the Arnon
Arnon

Arnon is a river and wadi in western Jordan , known in modern times in Arabic language as Wadi Mujib. The Hebrew language name means perhaps "noisy," a term which well-describes the latter part of the course of the river....
 river in the south, and as far north as the Dead Sea stretched, with an eastern border vaguely defined by the land dissolving into desert
Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
; the territory included the plain of Madaba
Madaba

File:Madaba Jerusalem Mosaic.jpgMadaba, ?????, is the capital city of Madaba Governorate of Jordan , which has a population of about 60,000....
. The exact border between Reuben and the Tribe of Gad
Tribe of Gad

The Tribe of Gad was one of the Israelites. At its height, Gad occupied a region to the east of the River Jordan, though the exact location is ambiguous; among the cities mentioned by the Bible as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth, Jaezer, Aroer, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Tribe of Re...
, generally considered to have been situated to the south of Reuben, is somewhat vague in the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
, with Dibon and Aroer
Aroer

Aroer is a town on the north bank of the River Arnon to the east of the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan.The town was an ancient Moabite settlement, and is mentioned in the Bible....
 being part of Gad according to the Book of Numbers
Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers, , is the fourth book of the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Old Testament. In the Greek language Septuagint it is called Arithmoi, or Numbers....
, but part of Reuben according to the Book of Joshua
Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in both the Hebrew Tanakh and the Old Testament of the Christianity Bible. This book stands as the first in the Former Prophets covering the history of Kingdom of Israel from the possession of the Promised Land to the Babylonian Captivity....
; this seems to suggest that the territory of Reuben was an enclave in the territory of Gad.

Origin
According to the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
, the tribe was founded by an individual, Reuben
Reuben (Bible)

Reuben or Re'uven was the first son of Jacob and of Leah, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Reuben in the Book of Genesis....
, the first son of Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
, and a son of Leah, from whom it took its name; however some Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 view this as a postdiction, an eponym
Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
 providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.






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The Tribe of Reuben was one of the Tribes of Israel.

At its height, the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
, reaching from the Arnon
Arnon

Arnon is a river and wadi in western Jordan , known in modern times in Arabic language as Wadi Mujib. The Hebrew language name means perhaps "noisy," a term which well-describes the latter part of the course of the river....
 river in the south, and as far north as the Dead Sea stretched, with an eastern border vaguely defined by the land dissolving into desert
Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
; the territory included the plain of Madaba
Madaba

File:Madaba Jerusalem Mosaic.jpgMadaba, ?????, is the capital city of Madaba Governorate of Jordan , which has a population of about 60,000....
. The exact border between Reuben and the Tribe of Gad
Tribe of Gad

The Tribe of Gad was one of the Israelites. At its height, Gad occupied a region to the east of the River Jordan, though the exact location is ambiguous; among the cities mentioned by the Bible as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth, Jaezer, Aroer, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Tribe of Re...
, generally considered to have been situated to the south of Reuben, is somewhat vague in the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
, with Dibon and Aroer
Aroer

Aroer is a town on the north bank of the River Arnon to the east of the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan.The town was an ancient Moabite settlement, and is mentioned in the Bible....
 being part of Gad according to the Book of Numbers
Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers, , is the fourth book of the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Old Testament. In the Greek language Septuagint it is called Arithmoi, or Numbers....
, but part of Reuben according to the Book of Joshua
Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in both the Hebrew Tanakh and the Old Testament of the Christianity Bible. This book stands as the first in the Former Prophets covering the history of Kingdom of Israel from the possession of the Promised Land to the Babylonian Captivity....
; this seems to suggest that the territory of Reuben was an enclave in the territory of Gad.

Origin


According to the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
, the tribe was founded by an individual, Reuben
Reuben (Bible)

Reuben or Re'uven was the first son of Jacob and of Leah, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Reuben in the Book of Genesis....
, the first son of Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
, and a son of Leah, from whom it took its name; however some Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 view this as a postdiction, an eponym
Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
 providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars regard the tribe as having been believed by the text's authors to have been part of the original Israelite confederation.

In the biblical account, Reuben are portrayed as having arrived east of the Jordan after leaving Egypt
The Exodus

The Exodus , is the term used for the escape, departure and emancipation of the enslaved Israelites freed from Ancient Egypt as described in the Hebrew Bible, mainly in the Book of Exodus....
, but rather than taking land on the west of the Jordan, after conquering it under Joshua
Joshua

Joshua, Jehoshuah or Yehoshua , born in Egypt, was a biblical Israelite leader who succeeded Moses. His story is told in the Hebrew Bible, chiefly in the books Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers and Book of Joshua....
, instead took land on the east, as they owned a large number of cattle
Cattle

Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domestication ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. They are raised as livestock for meat , dairy products , leather and as draft animals ....
, and the territory seemed suitable for pasture
Pasture

Pasture is land with herbaceous vegetation cover used for grazing of ungulate livestock as part of a farm or ranch. Prior to the advent of factory farming, pasture was the primary source of food for grazing animals such as cattle and horses....
. Israel Finkelstein et al., however, have claimed that lack of evidence for a systematic conquest or the abrupt appearance of a new culture indicates that the Israelites simply arose as a subculture within Canaanite society. The territory of Reuben encapsulated the territory of the earlier kingdom of Sihon
Sihon

Sihon, according to the Old Testament, was an Amorite king, who refused to let the Israelites pass through his country. The Bible describes that as the Israelites in their Exodus came to the country east of the Jordan River, near Heshbon, King of the Amorites refused to let them pass through his country....
.

Character


According to the ancient Song of Deborah, Reuben declined to take part in the war against Sisera
Sisera

Sisera, Heb. ?????, mentioned in the Book of Judges 4:2 in the Hebrew Bible, was the captain of Jabin's army which was routed and destroyed by the army of Barak on the plain of Esdraelon....
, the people instead idly resting among their flocks as if it were a time of peace, though the decision to do so was taken with a heavy heart. According to the Book of Chronicles, during the reign of King Saul Reuben instigated a war with the Hagarites, and was victorious; in another portion of the same text, Reuben are said to have been assisted in this war by Gad
Tribe of Gad

The Tribe of Gad was one of the Israelites. At its height, Gad occupied a region to the east of the River Jordan, though the exact location is ambiguous; among the cities mentioned by the Bible as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth, Jaezer, Aroer, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Tribe of Re...
 and the eastern half of Manasseh
Tribe of Manasseh

The Tribe of Menasheh was one of the Israelites. Together with the Tribe of Ephraim, Menasheh also formed the House of Joseph. At its height, the territory it occupied spanned the Jordan River, forming two "half-tribes", one on each side; the eastern half-tribe was almost entirely discontinuity with the western half-tribe, only slightly...
. In the Blessing of Jacob
Blessing of Jacob

The Blessing of Jacob is a poem that appears in Book of Genesis at .The poem presents an opinion of the merits and attributes of each of the Tribes of Israel, and so can be compared with the Blessing of Moses, which has the same theme....
, which some textual scholars date substantially later than these events, the tribe is characterised as fickle - unstable as water, and condemned to dwindle in power and size due to the incest
Incest

Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons that is illegal or socially taboo. The type of sexual activity and the nature of the relationship between persons that constitutes a breach of law or social taboo vary with culture and jurisdiction....
 of its eponymous founder with Jacobs concubine Bilha;.

The mandrake
Mandrake

Mandrake may refer to:* Mandrake , a plant of the genus Mandragora* Mandrake , a pesticide for wheat, commercialized by Bayer* Mandrake , an original TV series from HBO Latin America ...
s in Reuben's coat -of-arms are based on the story where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field.

Fate


As part of the Kingdom of Israel
Kingdom of Israel

The Kingdom of Israel was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy . It existed roughly from the 930s BC until about the 720s BC....
, the territory of Reuben was conquered by the Assyrians
Assyrians

Assyrians or Assyrian people may refer to :*the Ancient Assyrians*the modern Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peopleSee also*Assyrian ...
, and the tribe exiled; the manner of their exile lead to their further history being lost.

See also

  • Israel
    Israel

    Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....