Matthew Henry on Joshua 16:5–end
Here, 1. The border of the lot of Ephraim is set down, by which it was divided on the south from Benjamin and Dan, who lay between it and Judah, and on the north from Manasseh; for east and west it reached from Jordan to the great sea. The learned, who aim to be exact in drawing the line according to the directions here, find themselves very much at a loss, the description being short and intricate. The report of those who in these latter ages have travelled those countries will not serve to clear the difficulties, so vastly unlike is it now to what it was then; not only cities have been so destroyed as that no mark nor footstep of them remains, but brooks are dried up, rivers alter their co…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Joshua 16:5
THE BORDERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF EPHRAIM. (Jos 16:5-9)
the border of their inheritance . . . was Ataroth-addar--Ataroth-addar (now Atara), four miles south of Jetta [ROBINSON], is fixed on as a center, through which a line is drawn from Upper Beth-horon to Michmethah, showing the western limit of their actual possessions. The tract beyond that to the sea was still unconquered.
Adam Clarke on Joshua 16:5
Ataroth-addar - See the note on Jos 16:2.
Beth-horon the upper - The situation of this town is little known. It was eastward of Beth-horon the nether, and consequently not far from it.
John Gill on Joshua 16:5
And the border of the children of Ephraim, according to their families, was thus,.... Or what follows is the description of it:
even the border of their inheritance on the east side was Atarothaddar, unto Bethhoron the upper; the first was on the south of the inheritance, and the latter on the north, as Masius has placed them: who has given us a type of this description, by which it appears that this lot is here described in its breadth from south to north.
John Calvin on Joshua 16:1–end
