And besides all this, there is nothing which can urge us to say that the two tribes and the half did commendably in the erecting of this altar.(813) Calvin finds two faults in their proceeding. 1. In that they attempted such a notable and important innovation without advising with their brethren of the other tribes, and especially without inquiring the will of God by the high priest. 2. Whereas the law of God commanded only to make one altar, forasmuch as God would be worshipped only in one place, they did inordinately, scandalously, and with appearance of evil, erect another altar; for every one who should look upon it could not but presently think that they had forsaken the law, and were setting up a strange and degenerate rite. Whether also that altar which they set up for a pattern of the Lord’s altar, was one of the images forbidden in the second commandment, I leave it to the judicious reader to ruminate upon. But if one would gather from ver. 33, that the priest, and the princes, and the children of Israel, did allow of that which the two tribes and the half had done, because it is said, “The thing pleased the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God, and did not intend to go up against them in battle:”
I answer, the Hebrew text hath it thus: “And the word was good in the eyes of the children of Israel,” &c.; that is, the children of Israel blessed God for the word which Phinehas and the ten princes brought to them, because thereby they understood that the two tribes and the half had not turned away from following the Lord, nor made them an altar for burnt-offerings or sacrifice; which was enough to make them (the nine tribes and a half) desist from their purpose of going up to war against their brethren, to shed their blood. Again, when Phinehas and the ten princes say to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, This day we perceive that the Lord is among us, “because ye have not committed this trespass against the Lord,” they do not exempt them from all prevarication; only they say _signanter_, “this trespass,” to wit, of turning away from the Lord, and building an altar for sacrifice, whereof they were accused. Thus we see that no approbation of that which the two tribes and the half did, in erecting the altar, can be drawn from the text.