Tribe of Reuben
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Num. 1:20–21)—received land east of the Jordan, between the Arnon on the south and Jazer on the north, with Gilead to the east and the Jordan to the west. At the first census after the Exodus it numbered 46,500 men aged twenty and upward; before the crossing of the Jordan it numbered 43,730 (Num. 1:20–21; 26:7). The source identifies its territory with the pasture-rich Belka. Because it lay east of the Jordan, the Reubenites were among the first carried into Assyrian captivity (1 Chron. 5:26).