성경 주석서

Ch. Joshua 13:1-7. The Divine Command to Joshua to distribute the Land

1. Now Joshua] With the thirteenth chapter begins the Second Part of the Book of Joshua. It describes the division of the Land, and rests no doubt on definite records which lay before the writer. “There is one document in the Hebrew Scriptures to which probably no parallel exists in the topographical records of any other ancient nation. In the Book of Joshua we have what may without offence be termed the Domesday Book of the conquest of Canaan. Ten chapters of that Book are devoted to a description of the country, in which not only are its general features and boundaries carefully laid down, but the names and situations of its towns and villages enumerated with a precision of geographical terms which encourages and almost compels a minute investigation.” Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. xiii.

Now Joshua was old] The Hebrew leader was now about ninety years of age. Much land still remained to be occupied. Strong fortresses—like Jerusalem, Gezer, and Bethshean—still remained in the hands of the defeated Canaanites. Their reduction by ordinary means would require time and entail difficulty. The command, therefore, is now given to wait no longer, but proceed to the division of the Land.

and stricken in years] “Thou hast woxe eld, and art of loong age,” Wyclif. Comp. Genesis 18:11; Genesis 24:1; Joshua 23:1-2.

2. the land that yet remaineth] It is described as lying partly (a) in the south (Joshua 13:3-4), and partly (b) in the north (Joshua 13:5-6). The cities still occupied by the Canaanites were left for reduction by the tribes into whose allotment they might severally fall.

all the borders of the Philistines] Literally, all the circles of the Philistines. Vulgate, “Galilæa Philisthiim;” “Galilee of the Philistines,” Luther. “Galile Philistym,” Wyclif. The unsubdued district commences on the south with the Shephêlah and the maritime plain. The Philistines are now first prominently mentioned. Since the time of Abraham (Genesis 21:32; Genesis 21:34; Genesis 26:1; Genesis 26:8), this people had been transformed from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation, and had advanced northwards into “the plain of Philistia” or the “Shephêlah,” so well suited for war chariots, and offering by its occasional elevations secure sites for towns and strongholds.

and all Geshuri] The Geshurites, not the country mentioned in chs. Joshua 12:5, Joshua 13:13, but an ancient tribe, which dwelt in the desert between Arabia and Philistia. See 1 Samuel 27:8.

3. from Sihor] = “the Black Stream,” the usual name of the Nile. Here probably it is “the river of Egypt,” the Wady el Arish (1 Chronicles 13:5), the Rhinokolura or Rhinokorura. Wyclif, following the Vulg., “a fluvio turbido qui irrigat Ægyptum,” renders it, “the trubli flood that weetith Egipt.”

which is before Egypt] The “brook of Egypt” flows actually before, i.e. in a N. E. direction from Egypt, while the Nile takes its course through the middle of that country.

unto the borders of Ekron] The most northerly of the five towns belonging to the lords of the Philistines. The city of the fly-god Beelzebub. In the Apocrypha it appears as Accaron (1Ma 10:89).

which is counted to the Canaanite] Or better, shall it be counted to the Canaanites. The western strip of country beginning at Sihor, and extending northward to Ekron, was to be regarded as Canaanitish, and so subject to conquest; although the Philistines were not Canaanites, but were sprung from Mizraim (Genesis 10:13) and had dispossessed the Canaanite Avites or Avim.

five lords] A special word is here used, and the cities over which they held sway are enumerated as (i) Gaza; (ii) Ashdod; (iii) Ashkelon; (iv) Gath; (v) Ekron.

the Gazathites] See above, Joshua 10:41, Joshua 11:22.

the Ashdothites] See above, Joshua 11:22.

the Eshkalonites] Or Ashkalonites of Ashkelon, which is mentioned nowhere else in the book of Joshua. Next to Gaza it was probably the most important city of the Philistines. Hither Samson repaired from Timnath (Jdg 14:19); there David would not have the deaths of Saul and Jonathan proclaimed (2 Samuel 1:20), lest the daughters of the Philistines should rejoice. Like the other Philistine cities, it was threatened by the prophets with the Divine judgment (see Jeremiah 25:20; Jeremiah 47:5; Jeremiah 47:7; Amos 1:8; Zephaniah 2:7; Zechariah 9:5). Near the town afterwards rose the celebrated temple of Derceto, the Syrian Venus. It played a conspicuous part in the struggles of the Crusades, and within the walls and towers now standing Richard I. held his court. See Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, sub voc.

the Gittites] i.e. the people of Gath, the home of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4); connected with Ashkelon in David’s lamentation (2 Samuel 1:20); conquered by David (1 Chronicles 18:1). See above, Joshua 11:22.

also the Avites] Avim, or Avims. These people, a portion of the early inhabitants of Palestine, are mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:23 as dwelling in the villages in the southern part of the great western lowland as far as Gaza. Here they were attacked by the invading Philistines, who drove them northwards and occupied their rich possessions.

4. from the south] The LXX. here gives a proper name, “from Teman.” This was the former southern limit of the Avites’ territory.

all the land of the Canaanites] Here some would insert a full stop, as though the words summed up what had gone before.

and Mearah] “Mara of Sydonys,” Wyclif. This place is only mentioned in this passage. The word meârâh means in Hebrew “a cave” (see margin), and it has been commonly supposed that the reference is to a remarkable cavern near Zidon. A village called el-Mughâr has been found in the mountains of Naphtali some 10 miles west of the northern extremity of the Sea of Galilee, which it has been thought may possibly represent the ancient Mearab. See Menke’s Bible Atlas, Plate iii.

unto Aphek] A city in the extreme north of Asher, now Afka, N. E. of Beyrout, and apparently beyond Sidon. It was called by the Greeks Aphaca, and was noted for a temple of Venus destroyed by Constantine.

to the borders of the Amorites] i.e. on the extreme north border of the Amorites, or the land once inhabited by them, and which afterwards passed to Og, king of Bashan.

5. the land of the Giblites] i.e. the land of the inhabitants of Gebal, a name which occurs in Psalm 83:7,

“Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek;

The Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;”

and Ezekiel 27:8-9, “The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers.” It was a maritime town of Phœnicia. Its inhabitants are written “Giblians” in the Vulgate, and “Byblians” in the LXX. (while in 1 Kings 5:18 the word is rendered “stone-squarers”), whence we may infer the identity of the city with the Byblus of classical literature. Byblus was a seat of the worship of Adonis or Syrian Tammuz. The modern name is Jebail, about 22 miles north of Beyrout. The coins of Byblus have frequently the type of Astarte, also of Isis, who came here in search of the body of Osiris. “At Jebail and in other ancient Phœnician cities there are traces of the same large bevelled stones clamped with iron, which appear in the foundations of Solomon’s temple. These are probably the work of the Giblites.” See Ritter’s Geog. Pal. II. 214, 215.

all Lebanon, toward the sunrising] i.e. Anti-Lebanon.

from Baal-gad] See above, note on Joshua 11:17.

the entering into Hamath] The extreme northern boundary point of Palestine whither the spies originally penetrated (Numbers 13:21), and to which the kingdom of David and Solomon once actually extended (2 Samuel 8:3-12; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 1 Chronicles 18:3-11; 2 Chronicles 8:3-4). In the time of the Crusades it was called Epiphaneia, a town situated on the western bank of the Orontes, lower down the stream than Emesa. It is called “Hamath the Great” (Amos 6:2), and commanded the whole of the Orontes valley, from the low screen of hills which forms the watershed between the Orontes and the Litâny—“the entrance of Hamath”—to the defile of Daphne below Antioch.

6. All the inhabitants] In addition to those already enumerated there remained to be conquered all the inhabitants of the mountains from Lebanon unto Mizrephoth-maim, which has been already mentioned above, ch. Joshua 11:8. “May it not be the place,” asks Mr Grove, “with which we are familiar in the later history as Zarephath?” Smith’s Bibl. Dict.

only divide thou it by lot] These words connect themselves with Joshua 13:1.

7. Now therefore divide] Here we have a more definite statement of the tribes amongst whom western Palestine was to be divided.

8–14. The Territory of the Two Tribes and a Half East of the Jordan. Its Boundaries

8. With whom] i.e. with Manasseh. It alludes to the other half of that tribe.

the Reubenites and the Gadites] These statements are the same as in ch. Joshua 12:1-6.