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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 4:32 - 4:32
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Instead of the five cities, Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Tochen, and Ashan, only four are mentioned in Jos 19:7, viz., Ain, Rimmon, Ether, and Ashan; עֶתֶר is written instead of תֹּוכֶן, and עֵיטָם is wanting. According to Movers, p. 73, and Berth. in his commentary on the passage, the list of these cities must have been at first as follows: רִמֹּון עֵין (one city), עֶתֶר, תֹּוכֶן, and עָשָׁן; in Joshua תֹּוכֶן must have fallen out by mistake, in our text עֶתֶר has been erroneously exchanged for the better known city עֵיטָם in the tribe of Judah, while by reckoning both עין and רִמֹּון the number four has become five. These conjectures are shown to be groundless by the order of the names in our text. For had עֶתֶר been exchanged for עֵיטָם, עיטם would not stand in the first place, at the head of the four or five cities, but would have occupied the place of עֶתֶר, which is connected with עָשָׁן in Jos 19:7 and Jos 15:43. Then again, the face that in Jos 15:32 רִמֹּון is separated from עַיִן by the ו cop., and in Jos 19:7 is reckoned by itself as one city as in our verse, is decisive against taking עַיִן and רִמֹּון together as one name. The want of the conjunction, moreover, between the two names here and in Jos 19:7, and the uniting of the two words into one name, עֵין־תֹּון, Neh 11:29, is explained by the supposition that the towns lay in the immediate neighbourhood of each other, so that they were at a later time united, or at least might be regarded as one city. Rimmon is perhaps the same as the ruin Rum er Rummanim, four hours to the north of Beersheba; and Ain is probably to be identified with a large half-ruined and very ancient well which lies at from thirty to thirty-five minutes distance, cf. on Jos 15:32. Finally, the assertion that the name עֵיטָם has come into our text by an ex change of the unknown עֶתֶר for the name of this better known city of Judah, is founded upon a double geographical error. It rests (1) upon the erroneous assumption that besides the Etam in the high lands of Judah to the south of Bethlehem, there was no other city of this name, and that the Etam mentioned in Jdg 15:8, Jdg 15:11 is identical with that in the high lands of Judah; and (2) on the mistaken idea that Ether was also situated in the high lands of Judah, whereas it was, according to Jos 15:42, one of the cities of the Shephelah; and the Simeonites, moreover, had no cities in the high lands of Judah, but had their dwelling-places assigned to them in the Negeb and the Shephelah. The existence of a second Etam, besides that in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, is placed beyond doubt by Jdg 15:8 and Jdg 15:11; for mention is there made of an Etam in the plain of Judah, which is to be sought in the neighbourhood of Khuweilife, on the border of the Negeb and the mountainous district: cf. on Jdg 15:8. It is this Etam which is spoken of in our verse, and it is rightly grouped with Ain and Rimmon, which were situated in the Negeb, while Tochen and Ashan were in the Shephelah. The statement of Jos 19:7 and Jos 15:42 leaves no doubt as to the fact that the תֹּוכֶן of our verse is only another name for עֶתֶר. Etam must therefore have come into the possession of the Simeonites after Joshua's time, but as to when, or under what circumstances, we have no information.