NOTES for Num 32:1-42
The conquest of the land was not a one-time act; it was a process that took quite a long time. Some Hebrew tribes had adopted a settled way of life even before the massive invasion of Palestine that is properly called the conquest of the land. The fact is that in those days the Jordan Valley offered excellent conditions for settled, transhumant pastoralism. It is no surprise that the Hebrews then living east of the Jordan chose those lands for their pastures even before the settlement of Palestine.
Two of the twelve tribes settled there for a long time, remaining on those lands even after the conquest of Palestine. This is where the question of the national unity of the Hebrew people arose. The two tribes that had settled east of the Jordan, in essence, had no need for any further conquests - they had already received their land. The conquest of Palestine, meanwhile, was a matter for the whole nation; it concerned the entire people as a whole, not individual tribes.
The question of whether those who had settled east of the Jordan would take part in the conquest of Palestine was a question of the extent to which the Hebrews at that time had already come into being as a nation. Consent would mean that the Hebrew people had already formed precisely as one people; refusal would mean that before us there was still not a nation, but the same union of twelve tribes - descendants of Jacob, who had once moved from Palestine to Egypt. Those living east of the river agree, thereby confirming that the Hebrews really had formed precisely as a nation, and not merely as a tribal union.
What is most remarkable is that they agree not so much in the name of a national idea as in the name of God and for the sake of brotherly love. For them the matter here is not so much national as Yahwistic; in this case they act as members of one religious community, that Yahwistic community which they are already beginning to recognize themselves as being. Thus a people-community takes shape - gradually, step by step, through the recognition and fulfillment of the tasks that God sets before the people.