Lives of Scripture

Jair, son of Segub, was descended from Hezron of Judah through his great-grandmother, a daughter of Machir, Manasseh's own son and the recognized "father of Gilead" (1 Chronicles 2:21-22). During Israel's conquest of the Transjordan territory, Jair captured a cluster of towns in Gilead and renamed them Havvoth-jair, "the tent-villages of Jair" (Numbers 32:41). Deuteronomy 3:14 credits him with a wider conquest still, taking the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites and naming that territory after himself as well. Scripture calls him "the son of Manasseh" (Numbers 32:41) not by direct patrilineal descent -- his father's line traced to Judah -- but seemingly by maternal inheritance and territorial reckoning through Machir (1 Chronicles 2:21-23). His name endured remarkably: centuries later, one of Solomon's twelve administrative districts, centered on Ramoth-gilead, was still described as "the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh" (1 Kings 4:13). A judge who ruled the same region generations afterward also bore the name "Jair the Gileadite" and is likewise credited with Havvoth-jair (Judges 10:3-5) -- whether he was this Jair's own descendant reclaiming an ancestral name, or an unrelated man who inherited an already-old place-name, Scripture does not say.