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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joshua 19:1 - 19:1
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The Inheritance of Simeon fell within the inheritance of the children of Judah, because the land allotted to them at Gilgal was larger than they required (Jos 19:9). Thus the curse pronounced upon Simeon by Jacob of dispersion in Israel (Gen 49:7) was fulfilled upon this tribe in a very peculiar manner, and in a different manner from that pronounced upon Levi. The towns allotted to the tribe of Simeon are divided into two groups, the first (Jos 19:2-6) consisting of thirteen or fourteen towns, all situated in the Negeb (or south country); the second (Jos 19:7) of four towns, two of which were in the Negeb and two in the shephelah. All these eighteen towns have already been enumerated among the towns of Judah (Jos 15:26-32, Jos 15:42), and are mentioned again in 1Ch 4:28-32, in just the same order, and with only slight differences in the spelling of some of the names. If the classification of the names in two groups might seem to indicate that Simeon received a connected portion of land in Judah, this idea is overthrown at once by the circumstance that two of the four towns in the second group were in the south land and two in the lowland, and, judging from Jos 15:32, Jos 15:42, at a great distance from one another. At the same time, we cannot decide this point with any certainty, as the situation of several of the towns is still unknown.
Jos 19:2-6
Beersheba: see at Jos 15:28. Sheba is wanting in the Chronicles, but has no doubt been omitted through a copyist's error, as Shema answers to it in Jos 15:26, where it stands before Moladah just as Sheba does here. - On the names in Jos 19:3-6, see the exposition of Jos 15:28-32. - The sum total given in Jos 19:6, viz., thirteen towns, does not tally, as there are fourteen names. On these differences, see the remarks on Jos 15:32.
Jos 19:7
Ain and Rimmon were in the south land (Jos 15:32), Ether and Ashan in the lowlands (Jos 15:42).
Jos 19:8-9
In addition to the towns mentioned, the Simeonites received all the villages round about the towns to Baalath-beer, the Ramah of the south. This place, up to which the territory of the Simeonites extended, though without its being actually assigned to the Simeonites, is simply called Baal in 1Ch 4:33, and is probably the same as Bealoth in Jos 15:24, though its situation has not yet been determined (see at Jos 15:24). It cannot be identified, however, with Ramet el Khulil, an hour to the north of Hebron, which Roediger supposes to be the Ramah of the south, since the territory of Simeon, which was situated in the Negeb, and had only two towns in the shephelah, cannot possibly have extended into the mountains to a point on the north of Hebron. So far as the situation is concerned, V. de Velde would be more likely to be correct, when he identifies Rama of the south with Tell Lekiyeh on the north of Beersheba, if this conjecture only rested upon a better foundation than the untenable assumption, that Baalath-beer is the same as the Baalath of Dan in Jos 19:44.