Joshua 15:60

Halhul Jerom calls Ehul, and says {w} there was in his time in the country belonging to Aelia (or Jerusalem) a village by the name of Ahula, near Hebron; and Bethzur, Jerom says {x}, was then called Bethseron, a village as you go from Aelia to Hebron, in the twentieth mile, near which was a fountain at the bottom of a mount, where it is said the eunuch was baptized by Philip: he makes mention of another village called Bethsur in the tribe of Judah, a mile from Eleutheropolis. In the Apocrypha: "So he came to Judea, and drew near to Bethsura, which was a strong town, but distant from Jerusalem about five furlongs, and he laid sore siege unto it.'' (2 Maccabees 11:5) it is said to be but five furlongs from Jerusalem, but it must have been at a greater distance; Gedor, of this city, See Gill on "Joshua 12:13". {w} De loc. Heb. fol. 91. B. {x} De loc. Heb. fol. 89. G. Joshua 15:59 Ver. 59. And Maarath, and Bethanoth, and Eltekon,.... Of these cities we have no account elsewhere; only mention is made of Eltekeh, in the tribe of Dan, Joshua 19:44; six cities with their villages; these were all in the mountainous part of Judea, as were the two following. Joshua 15:60 Ver. 60. Kirjathbaal, (which [is] Kirjathjearim,),....

15:20-63 Here is a list of the cities of Judah. But we do not here find Bethlehem, afterwards the city of David, and ennobled by the birth of our Lord Jesus in it. That city, which, at the best, was but little among the thousands of Judah, Mic 5:2, except that it was thus honoured, was now so little as not to be accounted one of the cities.

Kirjathbaal, (which is Kirjathjearim,),.... Of Kirjathbaal, and its several names; see Gill on Joshua 15:9 , and Rabbah, of which we nowhere else read; for this is a very different city from the Rabbah of the children of Ammon, 2 Samuel 12:26, two cities with their villages; why these are reckoned by themselves is not certain.

Jos 15:21-63. Cities of Judah. 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.

Fourth group. Towns north of the last mentioned, of which Beth-zur and Gedor are represented by "Beit-sur" and "Jedur." After Joshua 15:59 follows in the Greek version a fifth group of eleven towns, which appears to have dropped in very ancient times out of the Hebrew text, probably because some transcriber passed unawares from the word "villages" at the end of Joshua 15:59, to the same word at the end of the missing passage. The omitted group contains the towns of an important, well-known, and populous district lying immediately south of Jerusalem, and containing such towns as Tekoah 2 Samuel 14:2; Nehemiah 3:5, Nehemiah 3:27; Amos 1:1; Bethlehem, the native town of David and of Christ Genesis 35:19; and Aetan, a Grecised form of Etam 2 Chronicles 11:6.

Verse 60. - Kirjath Baal. Before these words the LXX. insert the names of eleven more cities, among which Tekoah and Bethlehem are included. For the former see 2 Samuel 14:2 ; 2 Chronicles 11:6 ; 2 Chronicles 20:20 . The prophet Amos was one of its herdsmen ( Amos 1:1 ). We learn from 1 Maccab. 9:33, etc., that it was near Jordan, and had a waste district in its vicinity. It has been identified with Teku'a, two hours south of Bethlehem. Of Bethlehem itself, the home of Ruth and David, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, it is unnecessary to speak. But the incidents related concerning Bethlehem in Judges 17, 19 . (which seem to indicate that the author of the book had special information about Bethlehem), as well as the narrative of the Book of Ruth, lead us to suppose that the verse inserted here by the LXX. is genuine, since Bethlehem was, in early times, a town of sufficient importance to be noticed in a list like this, and that its omission in the Hebrew text is due to the mistake of some transcriber. Joshua 15:60

"David went with all the people that were with him to Baale-Jehuda, to fetch up the ark of God from thence." The words והוּדה מבּעליcause some difficulty on account of the מן, which is used instead of the accusative with ה loc., like בּעלתה in the Chronicles; yet the translators of the Septuagint, Chaldee, Vulgate, and other versions, all had the reading מן in their text, and בּעלי has therefore been taken as an appellative and rendered ἀπὸ τῶν ἀρχότων Ἰουδά ("from the rulers of Judah"), or as Luther renders it, "from the citizens of Judah." This is decidedly incorrect, as the word "thence" which follows is perfectly unintelligible on any other supposition than that Baale-Jehudah is the name of a place. Baale-Jehudah is another name of the city of Kirjath-jearim ( Joshua 15:60 ; Joshua 18:14 ), which is called Baalah in Joshua 15:9 and 1 Chronicles 13:6 , according to its Canaanitish name, instead of which the name Kirjath-jearim (city of the woods) was adopted by the Israelites, though without entirely supplanting the old name.