Commentaire sur Les Nombres 26:29

בני מנשה למכיר, “as for the sons of Menashe, the ones of Machir, etc.” The names of all the tribes are listed here in the same sequence as they have been listed in Numbers chapter one, with the exception of Ephrayim andMenashe; in this instance Menashe has been named first. The principal reason maybe that it numbered so many more men of military age than the descendants of Ephrayim. While the Jewish people had been in the desert, the number of members of the tribe of Ephrayim had been greater than that of the descendants of Menashe. Furthermore, the flag of Ephrayim’s army group had been the leader of its group, and in that chapter the subject of the flags had first been mentioned, and a tribe leading such a contingent takes precedence over one that merely is an adjunct. In our chapter where the subject is the impending distribution of parts of the Holy Land to the various tribes of the Jewish people, mentioning Menashe, Joseph’s firstborn son first seems appropriate. After all, half of that tribe had also been assigned a substantial portion of their inheritance on the east bank of the Jordan, alongside the tribes of Reuven and Gad.

למכיר “to Machir;” the sons of Machir were divided amongst five families, one bearing the name of its founding father, and the others bearing the names of Gilead, and the sixth of the sixth bearing the name of its founder.