It was pointed out that Josephus says the altar was on the east side of Jordan, and that the Scripture narrative makes the tribes to cross the river at “the passage of the Children of Israel,” which is supposed to describe the Jericho ford and not the ford at Damieh. For these reasons Conder now regards his idea as “only a conjecture.”
It may be reasonably questioned, however, whether the identification should be given up. We are told in Joshua xxii. 10, that the altar, so high to look to, was in “the region about Jordan that is in the land of Canaan”--“in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the Children of Israel.” The historian takes pains to distinguish between the two sides of the river, and if one side pertained to the Children of Israel more than the other, it was surely not the eastern side. Moreover, the altar was in the land of Canaan, and the eastern boundary of Canaan was the Jordan itself (see Gen. x. 19, and page 107 of this volume). The altar was “in the forefront of the land of Canaan,” at the extreme of its eastern side, and therefore close by the Jordan. The Hebrew faced the rising sun, and spoke of the south as the right hand, the north as the left, so that his forehead or forefront was to the east. It was apparently because the supposed idolatrous altar was set up on territory belonging to the western tribes that those tribes felt so insulted. The east of Jordan was unclean, but the western country was “the possession of the Lord.” “Come across”, they said, “into the Lord’s land, if you will; but if you come, do not build rebel altars” (v. 19). Further, the object of the two and a half tribes, according to their apology and explanation, was to have a memorial in that western land from which the Jordan seemed to cut them off.
Two and a half tribes being settled east of Jordan, three tribes north of the Plain of Esdraelon, and one in the Plain itself, the remainder of the country is divided between the remaining five tribes and a half.
In the Book of Joshua the boundaries of the tribes are given with the greatest minuteness, but it was impossible for us to trace them with any accuracy before the topographical survey was carried out. Many of the villages by which the border lines passed were lost, in some cases the sites were displaced; but as soon as these things were rectified the boundaries could again be drawn.