Joshua 11:7-8
Jos 11:7-8 With this to inspirit them, the Israelites fell upon the enemy and smote them, chasing them towards the north-west to Sidon, and westwards as far as Misrephothmaim, and into the plain of Mizpah on the east. Sidon is called the great (as in Jos 19:28), because at that time it was the metropolis of Phoenicia; whereas even by the time of David it had lost its ancient splendour, and was outstripped by its daughter city Tyre. It is still to be seen in the town of Saida, a town of five or six thousand inhabitants, with many large and well-built houses (see Rob. Pal. iii. p. 415, and Movers, Phönizier, ii. 1, pp. 86ff.). Misrephothmaim (mentioned also at Jos 13:6), which the Greek translators have taken as a proper name, though the Rabbins and some Christian commentators render it in different ways, such as salt-pits, smelting-huts, or glass-huts (see Ges. Thes. p. 1341), is a collection of springs, called Ain Mesherfi, at the foot of the promontory to which with its steep pass the name of Ras el Nakhûra is given, the scala Tyriorum or Passepoulain of the Crusaders (see V. de Velde, Mem. p. 335, and Ritter, Erdk. xvi. p. 807). מצפּה בּקעת (Eng. Ver. “the valley of Mizpeh”) is probably the basin of the Huleh lake and of Nahr Hasbany, on the western side of which lay the land of Mizpah (Jos 11:3).
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