In Numbers, chapter thirty-two, verse twenty, Moses said, to the children of Israel, “If ye will do this thing, if ye will go armed before the Lord to war,” and continued to instruct the other tribes. Moses would allow the tribes of Reuben and Gad, also the half-tribe of Manasseh as in verse thirty-three, to settle on the east side of Jordan only if they promised to help the other tribes in their conquest of Canaan. It would be a great sin if they sought their selfish interest while others risk battle for the Lord.
Here is the effect of plain dealing. Moses shows their sin, the danger of it brought them to their duty without murmuring or disputing. All men ought to consider the interests of others and their own because the law of love requires us to labor, venture, or suffer for each other as there may be occasion. They propose that their men of war should go ready armed before the children of Israel into the land of Canaan and that they should not return until the conquest of Canaan ends. Moses grants their request but warns them of the danger of breaking their word.
If you fail, you sin against the Lord and not against your brethren only. God will reckon with you for it. Be sure your sin will find you out. Sin will exactly find out the sinner sooner or later. It concerns us now to find our sins out that we may repent of them and forsake them, lest they find us out to our ruin.
The bottom portion of the same verse, before the Lord, refers to the ark, the token of God’s presence. He alludes to the order of the tribes in their march, whereby Reuben and Gad marched immediately before the ark, or to the manner of their passage over Jordan, wherein the ark went first into Jordan and stood there. Meanwhile, all the tribes marched over Jordan and before it.