Machir

Machir is the name of two men in the UPDV. The first is the son of Manasseh, grandson of Joseph, whose line carries the Machirite family, fathers Gilead, conquers the trans-Jordan, and receives Gilead and Bashan as a Mosaic land-grant. The second is a man of Lo-debar (also written Lodebar) who shelters Jonathan's lame son Mephibaal and later supplies David at Mahanaim during Absalom's revolt.

Machir Son of Manasseh

Machir is introduced in the Joseph cycle as a grandson formally received into the patriarch's household: "And Joseph saw Ephraim's sons of the third generation: the sons also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born on Joseph's knees" (Gen 50:23). The seeing-verb has Joseph as subject over Ephraim's third-generation descendants, and the birth-clause places Machir's sons on Joseph's knees, so Machir's children are received as knee-adopted great-grandchildren of Joseph.

In the plains-of-Moab muster Machir heads a family-line and fathers Gilead: "The sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites; and Machir begot Gilead; of Gilead, the family of the Gileadites" (Num 26:29). The of-Machir family-tag assigns "the family of the Machirites" to him, and the Gileadite branch extends out of his line.

The Conquest of Gilead

Machir's sons execute the trans-Jordan conquest themselves. "And the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead, and took it, and the Amorites who were in it were dispossessed" (Num 32:39). The going-verb sends the Machirite sons to Gilead, the take-verb captures the territory, and the passive dispossession-clause removes the Amorites from it.

The land is then formally granted to Machir by Moses: "And Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh; and he dwelt in it" (Num 32:40). Moses repeats the grant in the Deuteronomic recital — "And I gave Gilead to Machir" (Deut 3:15) — with Moses as first-person subject, Gilead as object, and Machir as recipient.

The Machirite Allotment in Gilead and Bashan

Joshua 17 names Machir as the firstborn of Manasseh and as the warrior-cause of the trans-Jordan grant: "And [this] was the lot for the tribe of Manasseh; for he was the firstborn of Joseph. As for Machir the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan" (Josh 17:1). The bracketed insertion supplies the demonstrative; the man-of-war clause supplies the explicit reason for the dual allotment of Gilead and Bashan.

The allotment is itemized in the trans-Jordan land-list: "and half Gilead, and Ashtaroth, and Edrei, the cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, were for the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh, even for the half of the sons of Machir according to their families" (Josh 13:31). Half of Gilead, together with Ashtaroth and Edrei — the cities of Og's Bashan kingdom — go to half of Machir's sons by family-divisions.

The Heads of the Machirite Houses

Late in Numbers, the Machirite line returns as the family-of-record for the Zelophehad-daughters case: "And the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the family of the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near, and spoke before Moses, and before the princes, the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the sons of Israel" (Num 36:1). The genealogical chain — Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh — situates the Machirite clan-heads as the formal petitioners before Moses on behalf of the Josephite families.

Machir of Lo-debar

The second Machir is the son of Ammiel, a man of Lo-debar in the trans-Jordan, who shelters Jonathan's lame son after the fall of Saul's house. When David asks Ziba where any survivor of Saul's house is, Ziba answers, "Look, he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo-debar" (2 Sam 9:4). David sends for him there: "Then King David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar" (2 Sam 9:5). Machir's house has thus served as the refuge for Mephibaal, the lame grandson of Saul, until David retrieves him for the king's table.

Machir reappears later in David's reign during Absalom's revolt, when David crosses the Jordan to Mahanaim and is met by trans-Jordan supporters: "And it came to pass, when David came to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim," come to provision him (2 Sam 17:27). Machir of Lodebar stands in this list alongside Shobi and Barzillai as one of the trans-Jordan figures who supply the king during his flight.