Matthew Henry on Joshua 15:20–end
We have here a list of the several cities that fell within the lot of the tribe of Judah, which are mentioned by name, that they might know their own, and both keep it and keep to it, and might neither through cowardice nor sloth lose the possession of what was their own.
I. The cities are here named, and numbered in several classes, which they then could account for the reason of better than we can now. Here are, 1. Some that are said to be the uttermost cities towards the coast of Edom, Jos 15:21-32. Here are thirty-eight named, and yet said to be twenty-nine (Jos 15:32), because nine of these were afterwards transferred to the lot of Simeon, and are reckoned as belonging to that, as appea…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Joshua 15:21
CITIES OF JUDAH. (Jos. 15:21-63)
the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah--There is given a list of cities within the tribal territory of Judah, arranged in four divisions, corresponding to the districts of which it consisted--the cities in the southern part (Jos 15:21-32), those in the lowlands (Jos 15:33-47), those in the highlands (Jos 15:48-60), and those in the desert (Jos 15:61-62). One gets the best idea of the relative situation of these cities by looking at the map.
Next: Joshua Chapter 16
Adam Clarke on Joshua 15:19
Give me a blessing - Do me an act of kindness. Grant me a particular request.
Thou hast given me a south land - Which was probably dry, or very ill, watered.
Give me also springs of water - Let me have some fields in which there are brooks or wells already digged.
The upper springs, and the nether springs - He gave her even more than she requested; he gave her a district among the mountains and another in the plains well situated and well watered. There are several difficulties in this account, with which I shall not trouble the reader. What is mentioned above appears to be the sense.
John Gill on Joshua 15:21
And the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah,.... That is, those cities which were the outward part of the tribe of Judah, the southern border of it; for the midland cities are not in this part, of the description reckoned, which reaches from hence to the end of Joshua 15:32,
toward the coast of Edom southward: it begins about the dead sea, and goes on in that part of the land of Canaan which bordered on Idumea, and so proceeds on westward towards Gaza, and the Mediterranean sea: the cities in this part of the tribe
were Kabzeel, called Jekabzeel, Nehemiah 11:25; and was the native place of Benaiah, one of David's mighty men, 2 Samuel 23:20,
and Eder and Jagur; of which…
