Bible Strands
Numbers 32:41
Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, went and captured their villages and called them Havvoth-jair.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses records the settlement arrangements for the eastern tribes in the plains of Moab. He notes that Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took possession of the surrounding villages following the allocation of Gilead.
The words — The Hebrew verb וַ/יִּלְכֹּ֖ד (va/i.yil.Kod) literally means "he captured," describing the seizure of the settlements. The subsequent verb וַ/יִּקְרָ֥א (va/i.yik.Ra') translates as "he called," indicating Jair's act of renaming the captured area Havvoth-jair.
The thread — This conquest and renaming pattern appears in Deuteronomy 3:14 and Joshua 13:30, which track Jair's territory in Bashan. The naming practice directly parallels Nobah's actions in Numbers 32:42.
Why it lands — The passage states a historical sequence of military capture and toponymic renaming without theological elaboration. It requires the reader to observe how ancestral land claims were formalized through conquest and nominal designation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Jair the son of Manasseh went and took the small towns thereof, and called them Havoth–jair.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 3:14 Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He renamed Bashan after himself, Havvoth-jair, by which it is called to this day.
- Judges 10:4 He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys. And they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth-jair.
- Joshua 13:30 The territory from Mahanaim through all Bashan—all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, including all the towns of Jair that are in Bashan, sixty cities;
- 1 Kings 4:13 Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead (the villages of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead belonged to him, as well as the region of Argob in Bashan with its sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars);
- 1 Chronicles 2:21 Later, Hezron slept with the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead. He had married her when he was sixty years old, and she bore to him Segub.