nine or (ordinal) ninth · conjunction + cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
villages
וְחַצְרֵיהֶֽןve.chatz.rei.Hen
H2691
a yard (as inclosed by a fence) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 34:11 And the coast shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain; and the border shall descend, and shall reach unto the side of…
Nehemiah 11:29 And at En-rimmon, and at Zareah, and at Jarmuth,
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
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…
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 15:32
All the cities are twenty and nine, with their villages - But on a careful examination we shall find thirty-eight; but it is supposed that nine of these are excepted; viz., Beersheba, Moladah, Hazarshual, Baalah, Azem, Hormah, Ziklag, Ain, and Rimmon, which were afterwards given to the tribe of Simeon. This may appear satisfactory, but perhaps the truth will be found to be this: Several cities in the promised land are expressed by compound terms; not knowing the places, different translations combine what should be separated, and in many cases separate what should be combined. Through this we have cities formed out of epithets. On this ground we have thirty-eight cities as the sum here, inst…
Bethlebaoth — (house of lionesses), a town in the lot of Simeon, (Joshua 19:6) in the extreme south of Judah. [ (Joshua 15:32) Lebaoth] In (1 Chronicles 4:31) the name is given BETH-BIREI.
Dagon’s house — (1 Sam. 5:2), or Beth-dagon, as elsewhere rendered (Josh. 15: 41; 19:27), was the sanctuary or temple of Dagon. The Beth-dagon of Josh. 15:41 was one of the cities of the tribe of Judah, in the…
Enrimmon — (fount of the pomegranate), one of the places which the men of Judah reinhabited after their return from the captivity. (Nehemiah 11:29) Perhaps the same as “Ain and Rimmon,” (Joshua 15:32) and “Ain,…
Hazor — Enclosed; fortified. (1.) A stronghold of the Canaanites in the mountains north of Lake Merom (Josh. 11:1-5). Jabin the king with his allied tribes here encountered Joshua in a great battle. Joshua…
Judah — Praise, the fourth son of Jacob by Leah. The name originated in Leah’s words of praise to the Lord on account of his birth: “Now will I praise [Heb. odeh] Jehovah, and she called his name Yehudah”…
Judah, Tribe of — Judah and his three surviving sons went down with Jacob into Egypt (Gen. 46:12; Ex. 1:2). At the time of the Exodus, when we meet with the family of Judah again, they have increased to the number of…
Lebaoth — (lionesses), a town which forms one of the last group of the cities of “the south” in the enumeration of the possessions of Judah, (Joshua 15:32) probably identical with Beth-lebaoth.
Rimmon — Pomegranate. (1.) A man of Beeroth (2 Sam. 4:2), one of the four Gibeonite cities. (See Josh. 9:17.) (2.) A Syrian idol, mentioned only in 2 Kings 5:18. (3.) One of the “uttermost cities” of Judah,…
Shilhim — Aqueducts, a town in the south of Judah (Josh. 15:32); called also Sharuhen and Shaaraim (19:6).
Ain · 1. A city of Simeon
John Gill on Joshua 15:32
And Lebaoth,.... Whether Lebaoth is the same with Bethlebaoth, given to the tribe of Simeon, Joshua 19:6; is not certain:
and Shilhim is nowhere else spoken of:
and Ain seems to be the same with that in Numbers 34:11; also See Gill on Numbers 34:11.
and Rimmon, the place Jerom (e) calls Eremmon, which he says was a large village of the Jews, sixteen miles from Eleutheropolis to the south, in Daroma; this and the preceding are joined together as one, and called Enrimmon, Nehemiah 11:29. It is probable they were near to each other, and in process of time the buildings of each might increase, so as to meet and join each other:
all the cities are twenty and nine, with their villages; but acc…
Joshua 15:14-63
14. And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.
14. Expulit inde Caleb tres filios Enac, Sezadi, et Ahiman, et Thalmai qui fuerunt filii Enac.
15. And he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir: and the name of Debir before was Kirjathsepher.
15. Ascenditque inde ad habitatores Debir, cujus nomen antea fuit Ciriath-sepher.
16. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjathsepher, and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
16. Dixitque Caleb, qui percusserit Ciriath-sepher, et ceperit eam, dabo ei Achsa filiam meam in uxorem.
17. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he ga…
In vv. 21-63 there follows a list of the towns of the tribe of Judah, arranged in the four districts into which the land was divided, according to the nature of the soil, viz., the south-land (negeb), the lowland (shephelah) on the Mediterranean Sea, the mountains, and the desert of Judah.
Jos 15:21-32
The towns in the south land. - Negeb (south-land) was the name given to the southernmost district of Canaan in its full extent, from the Arabah, at the southern end of the Dead Sea, right across to the coast of the Mediterranean, and from the southern border of Canaan, as described in Jos 15:2-4, as far north as Wady Sheriah, below Gaza, on the western side, and up to the mountains and desert…
in the extreme south: Or in the Negev (see study note on 1:4). The Hebrew word negeb can refer either to the general direction (“south”) or the desert region named “Negev.” • The location of Eder is otherwise unknown. Some propose translating this word as “Arad” because Arad should be about here in the list and was too important to have been left out. This translation would simply reverse two Hebrew letters that are very similar in shape.
Rashi on Joshua 15:32
Altogether there were twenty nine cities. If you count them however you will find that there were thirty eight. The extra nine cities were taken by the tribe of Shimon, from the portion of the descendants of Yehudah, and they are mentioned in the inheritance of Shimon:28See chapter 19. Beer-sheva, Molodoh, Chatzar-shual, Etzem, Eltodad, Chormoh, Tziklag Ayin and Rimon. These are the extra nine cities counted here.
Beth-Lebaoth · General references — General references
Lebaoth · A city of the tribe of Simeon — A city of the tribe of Simeon
Rimmon · .Allotted to the tribe of — .Allotted to the tribe of
Shilhim · A city in the territory of the tribe of — A city in the territory of the tribe of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
