These are the names of the men which shall divide the land unto you: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun.
Names of the men which shall divide the land. This appointment by the Lord before the passage of the Jordan tended not only to animate the Israelites' faith in the certainty of the conquest, but to prevent all subsequent dispute and discontent, which might have been dangerous in presence of the natives. The nominees were ten princes for the nine and a half tribes, one of them being selected from the western section of Manasseh, and all subordinate to the great military and ecclesiastical chiefs, Joshua and Eleazar. The names are mentioned in the exact order in which the tribes obtained possession of the land, and according to brotherly connection.