Joshua 22:25 For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you people of Reuben and people of Gad. You have no portion in the Lord.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord. 26 Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, 27 but to be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and peace offerings, so your children will not say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in the Lord.”’
When some of the tribes of Israel settled on the eastern side of the Jordan, there was a natural divide between the tribes - such a divide that it seemed to divide into two nations. When it came time for the soldiers of Israel to return home to that side, they wanted to make sure they stayed one united nation. So they build an altar of witness. In fact, they named it "Witness." Much like the piles of stones they had been leaving along their journey, this was to serve as a reminder of who they were and how they had gotten there. They made it clear it was not a second or different Tabernacle, dividing them, but a reminder to unify them. May the things we devise do the same.
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