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1.And the Lord spake unto Moses. God here undertakes the office of a prudent and careful father of a family, in fixing the boundaries of the land on every side, lest their right to posses it should ever be called in question. He begins on the southern side, where it must be observed that the district of Bashan is included in it, and all that the Israelites had acquired before their passage of the Jordan, so that this addition was approved of by God. He extends this part as far as the wilderness of Sin, and the borders of Edom, and brings it round from Kadesh-barnea to Addar, and the passage of Azmon, and, finally, to the stream which washes (228) the city of Rhinocorura, in the immediate vicinity of Egypt; for by “ river of Egypt” the Nile is by no means to be understood, the course of which was not at all in that direction. The southern boundary, therefore, was from the Mediterranean Sea towards Arabia. On the western side the land was washed by the Mediterranean Sea, which is here called “ Great Sea,” in comparison with the Lake of Gennesareth, and the Salt Sea, by which name the Lacus Asphaltires is here meant. The beginning of the northern boundary was the promontory of Hor, for it would not accord to suppose that the mountain is here referred to in which Aaron died, and which was far away, and situated on the opposite side of the land. It extended from hence to Epiphania in Syria, which is called Hamath; for I agree with Jerome in thinking that there were two cities of this name, and it is undoubtedly probable that Antioch is called “ the great” by the Prophet Amos (Amo_6:2,) in comparison with the lesser city here mentioned, the name of which was given it by that wicked and cruel tyrant (Antiochus) Epiphanes; whether, however, the greater Antioch was formerly called Hamath and Riblab, as Jerome states, I leave undecided. It then passed on to Zedad and Ziphron, and its extremity was the village of Enan. The eastern boundary passed from thence through Shephan, Riblah, and Ain, until it reached the Lake of Gennesareth, a lake sufficiently well known, and here called the Sea of Chinnereth. Thus the eastern boundary pointed from Arabia in the direction of Persia, and Babylon was situated to the north-east of it.
(228) There has been much discussion amongst the commentators on this point. The conclusion to which Dr. Kitto comes, after due examination of the opposite theory, is, that “ river of Egypt,” when mentioned as a boundary, cannot mean the Nile. “ present ‘ of Egypt’ (he adds) probably denotes a stream which formed the extreme boundary of the country eastward of the Nile, which Egypt, even in these early times, professed to claim, and which derived its name from that circumstance. It was probably not far from El-Arish, to which, under the name of Rhinocorura, it is expressly referred by the Septuagint. That it was a stream somewhere between the southern frontier of Palestine and the Nile we are deeply convinced.” — Illustr. Com., in loco.