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Bible Encyclopedias
Reuben
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Reu´ben (Behold a son), eldest son of Jacob by Leah (;; ). His improper intercourse with Bilhah, his father's concubine wife, was an enormity too great for Jacob ever to forget, and he spoke of it with abhorrence even on his dying bed (; ). For his conduct in this matter, Jacob, in his last blessing, deprived him of the pre-eminence and double portion which belonged to his birth-right, assigning the former to Judah, and the latter to Joseph (; comp.; ). The doom, 'Thou shalt not excel,' was exactly fulfilled in the destinies of the tribe descended from Reuben, which makes no figure in the Hebrew history, and never produced any eminent person. At the time of the Exodus, this tribe numbered 46,500 adult males, which ranked it as the seventh in population; but at the later census before entering Canaan, its numbers had decreased to 43,730, which rendered it the ninth, in population (; ). The Reubenites received for their inheritance the fine pasture-land (the present Belka) on the east of the Jordan, which to a cattle-breeding people, as they were, must have been very desirable ( sq.; 34:14;; ). This lay south of the territories of Gad (; ), and north of the River Arnon. Although thus settled earlier than the other tribes, excepting Gad and half Manasseh, who shared with them the territory beyond the Jordan, the Reubenites willingly assisted their brethren in the wars of Canaan (;; ); after which they returned to their own lands (); and we hear little more of them till the time of Hazael, king of Syria, who ravaged and for a time held possession of their country (). The Reubenites, and the other tribes beyond the river, were naturally the first to give way before the invaders from the East, and were the first of all the Israelites sent into exile by Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, B.C. 773 ().
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Reuben'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/r/reuben.html.
