1Ch 4:28-32 | KD | STEP | The ancient dwelling-places of the Simeonites , which they received within the tribal domain of Judah at the division of the land by Joshua; cf. Jos 19:1. - There are in all eighteen cities, divided into two groups, numbering thirteen and five respectively, as in , where these same cities are enumerated in the same order. The only difference is, that in Joshua thirteen cities are reckoned in the first group and four in the second, although the first group contains fourteen names. Between Beersheba and Moladah there stands there a שׁבע which is not found in our list, and which might be considered to be a repetition of the second part of בּאר־שׁבע, if it were not that in the list of the cities, , the name שׁמע before Moladah corresponds to it. The other differences between the two passages arise partly from different forms of the same name being used, - as, for example, בּלהה for בּלה (Josh.), תּולד for אלתּולד, בּתוּאל for בּתוּל; and partly from different names being used of the same city, - e.g., בּית־בּראי ( ) instead of בּית־לבאות, “the house of lions” (Josh.), שׁערים instead of שׁרוּחן (Josh.). All these cities lie in the south land of Judah, and have therefore been named in among the cities of that district. As to Beersheba, now Bir es Seba, see on ; and for Moladah, which is to be identified with the ruin el Milh to the south of Hebron, on the road to Ailah, see on Jos 15:26. Bilhah (in , בּעלה), Ezem, Tolad, and Bethuel (for which in כּסיל is found), have not yet been discovered; cf. on and Jos 15:30. Hormah, formerly Sephat, is now the ruin Sepata, on the western slope of the Rakhma table-land, 2 1/2 hours south of Khalasa (Elusa); cf. on Jos 12:14. Ziklag is most probably to be sought in the ancient village Aschludsch or Kasludsch, to the east of Sepata; cf. on Jos 15:31. Beth-marcaboth, i.e., “carriage-house,” and Hazar-susim (or Susa), i.e., horse-village, both evidently by-names, are called in Madmannah and Sansannah. Their position has not yet been discovered. Beth-Birei, or Beth-lebaoth, is also as yet undiscovered; cf. on Jos 15:32. Shaaraim, called in Shilhim, is supposed to be the same as Tell Sheriah, between Gaza and Beersheba; cf. Van de Velde, Reise, ii. S. 154. The enumeration of these thirteen cities concludes in with the strange subscription, “These (were) their cities until the reign of David, and their villages.” וחצריהם, which, according to the Masoretic division of the verses, stands at the beginning of , should certainly be taken with ; for the places mentioned in are expressly called cities, and in , cities and their villages, הצריהם, are spoken of. This subscription can hardly “only be intended to remind us, that of the first-mentioned cities, one (viz., Ziklag, ), or several, in the time of David, no longer belonged to the tribe of Simeon;” nor can it only be meant to state that “till the time of David the cities named were in possession of the tribe of Simeon, though they did not all continue to be possessed by this tribe at a later time” (Berth.). Ziklag had been, even before the reign of David, taken away from the Simeonites by the Philistines, and had become the property of King Achish, who in the reign of Saul presented it to David, and through him it became the property of the kings of Judah ( ). The subscription can only mean that till the reign of David these cities rightfully belonged to the Simeonites, but that during and after David’s reign this rightful possession of the Simeonites was trenched upon; and of this curtailing of their rights, the transfer of the city of Ziklag to the kings of Judah gives one historically attested proof. This, however, might not have been the only instance of the sort; it may have brought with it other alterations in the possessions of the Simeonites as to which we have no information. The remark of R. Salomo and Kimchi, that the men of Judah, when they had attained to greater power under David’s rule, drove the Simeonites out of their domains, and compelled them to seek out other dwelling-places, is easily seen to be an inference drawn from the notices in of emigrations of the Simeonites into other districts; but it may not be quite incorrect, as these emigrations under Hezekiah presuppose a pressure upon or diminution of their territory. We would indeed expect this remark to occur after , but it may have been placed between the first and second groups of cities, for the reason that the alterations in the dwelling-places of the Simeonites which took place in the time of David affected merely the first group, while the cities named in Jos 19:32., with their villages, remained at a later time even the untouched possession of the Simeonites.

‏ 1 Chronicles 4:28-32

1Ch 4:28-31 The ancient dwelling-places of the Simeonites, which they received within the tribal domain of Judah at the division of the land by Joshua; cf. Jos 19:1. - There are in all eighteen cities, divided into two groups, numbering thirteen and five respectively, as in Jos 19:2-6, where these same cities are enumerated in the same order. The only difference is, that in Joshua thirteen cities are reckoned in the first group and four in the second, although the first group contains fourteen names. Between Beersheba and Moladah there stands there a שׁבע which is not found in our list, and which might be considered to be a repetition of the second part of בּאר־שׁבע, if it were not that in the list of the cities, Jos 15:26, the name שׁמע before Moladah corresponds to it. The other differences between the two passages arise partly from different forms of the same name being used, - as, for example, בּלהה for בּלה (Josh.), תּולד for אלתּולד, בּתוּאל for בּתוּל; and partly from different names being used of the same city, - e.g., בּית־בּראי (1Ch 4:31) instead of בּית־לבאות, “the house of lions” (Josh.), שׁערים instead of שׁרוּחן (Josh.). All these cities lie in the south land of Judah, and have therefore been named in Jos 15:26-32 among the cities of that district. As to Beersheba, now Bir es Seba, see on Gen 21:31; and for Moladah, which is to be identified with the ruin el Milh to the south of Hebron, on the road to Ailah, see on Jos 15:26. Bilhah (in Jos 15:29, בּעלה), Ezem, Tolad, and Bethuel (for which in Jos 15:31 כּסיל is found), have not yet been discovered; cf. on Jos 15:29 and Jos 15:30. Hormah, formerly Sephat, is now the ruin Sepata, on the western slope of the Rakhma table-land, 2 1/2 hours south of Khalasa (Elusa); cf. on Jos 12:14. Ziklag is most probably to be sought in the ancient village Aschludsch or Kasludsch, to the east of Sepata; cf. on Jos 15:31. Beth-marcaboth, i.e., “carriage-house,” and Hazar-susim (or Susa), i.e., horse-village, both evidently by-names, are called in Jos 15:31 Madmannah and Sansannah. Their position has not yet been discovered. Beth-Birei, or Beth-lebaoth, is also as yet undiscovered; cf. on Jos 15:32. Shaaraim, called in Jos 15:32 Shilhim, is supposed to be the same as Tell Sheriah, between Gaza and Beersheba; cf. Van de Velde, Reise, ii. S. 154. The enumeration of these thirteen cities concludes in 1Ch 4:31 with the strange subscription, “These (were) their cities until the reign of David, and their villages.” וחצריהם, which, according to the Masoretic division of the verses, stands at the beginning of 1Ch 4:32, should certainly be taken with 1Ch 4:31; for the places mentioned in 1Ch 4:32 are expressly called cities, and in Jos 19:6, cities and their villages, הצריהם, are spoken of. This subscription can hardly “only be intended to remind us, that of the first-mentioned cities, one (viz., Ziklag, 1Sa 27:6), or several, in the time of David, no longer belonged to the tribe of Simeon;” nor can it only be meant to state that “till the time of David the cities named were in possession of the tribe of Simeon, though they did not all continue to be possessed by this tribe at a later time” (Berth.). Ziklag had been, even before the reign of David, taken away from the Simeonites by the Philistines, and had become the property of King Achish, who in the reign of Saul presented it to David, and through him it became the property of the kings of Judah (1Sa 27:6). The subscription can only mean that till the reign of David these cities rightfully belonged to the Simeonites, but that during and after David’s reign this rightful possession of the Simeonites was trenched upon; and of this curtailing of their rights, the transfer of the city of Ziklag to the kings of Judah gives one historically attested proof. This, however, might not have been the only instance of the sort; it may have brought with it other alterations in the possessions of the Simeonites as to which we have no information. The remark of R. Salomo and Kimchi, that the men of Judah, when they had attained to greater power under David’s rule, drove the Simeonites out of their domains, and compelled them to seek out other dwelling-places, is easily seen to be an inference drawn from the notices in Jos 19:33-43 of emigrations of the Simeonites into other districts; but it may not be quite incorrect, as these emigrations under Hezekiah presuppose a pressure upon or diminution of their territory. We would indeed expect this remark to occur after Jos 19:33, but it may have been placed between the first and second groups of cities, for the reason that the alterations in the dwelling-places of the Simeonites which took place in the time of David affected merely the first group, while the cities named in Jos 19:32., with their villages, remained at a later time even the untouched possession of the Simeonites. 1Ch 4:32

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; עתר is written instead of תּוכן, and עיטם 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: רמּון עין (one city), עתר, תּוכן, and עשׁן; in Joshua תּוכן must have fallen out by mistake, in our text עתר has been erroneously exchanged for the better known city עיטם in the tribe of Judah, while by reckoning both עין and רמּון the number four has become five. These conjectures are shown to be groundless by the order of the names in our text. For had עתר been exchanged for עיטם, עיטם would not stand in the first place, at the head of the four or five cities, but would have occupied the place of עתר, which is connected with עשׁן in Jos 19:7 and Jos 15:43. Then again, the face that in Jos 15:32 רמּון is separated from עין by the ו cop., and in Jos 19:7 is reckoned by itself as one city as in our verse, is decisive against taking עין and רמּון 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, עין־תּון, 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 עיטם has come into our text by an ex change of the unknown עתר 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 תּוכן of our verse is only another name for עתר. 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.