Joshua 19:34
Jos 19:34 From the Jordan below the Lake of Tiberias, or speaking more exactly, from the point at which the Wady Bessum enters the Jordan, “the boundary (of Asher) turned westwards to Asnoth-tabor, and went thence out to Hukkok.” This boundary, i.e., the southern boundary of Asher, probably followed the course of the Wady Bessum from the Jordan, which wady was the boundary of Issachar on the north-east, and then ran most likely from Kefr Sabt (see at Jos 19:22) to Asnoth-tabor, i.e., according to the Onom. (s. v. Azanoth), a vicus ad regionem Diocaesareae pertinens in campestribus, probably on the south-east of Diocaesarea, i.e., Sepphoris, not far from Tabor, to which the boundary of Issachar extended (Jos 19:22). Hukkok has not yet been traced. Robinson (Bibl. Res. p. 82) and Van de Velde (Mem. p. 322) are inclined to follow Rabbi Parchi of the fourteenth century, and identify this place with the village of Yakûk, on the north-west of the Lake of Gennesareth; but this village is too far to the north-east to have formed the terminal point of the southern boundary of Naphtali, as it ran westwards from the Jordan. After this Naphtali touched “Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west, and Judah by the Jordan toward the sun-rising or east.” “The Jordan” is in apposition to “Judah,” in the sense of “Judah of the Jordan,” like “Jordan of Jericho” in Num 22:1; Num 26:3, etc. The Masoretic pointing, which separates these two words, was founded upon some false notion respecting this definition of the boundary, and caused the commentators great perplexity, until C. v. Raumer succeeded in removing the difficulty, by showing that the district of the sixty towns of Jair, which was upon the eastern side of the Jordan, is called Judah here, or reckoned as belonging to Judah, because Jair, the possessor of these towns, was a descendant of Judah on the father’s side through Hezron (1Ch 2:5, 1Ch 2:21-22); whereas in Jos 13:30, and Num 32:41, he is reckoned contra morem, i.e., against the rule laid down in Num 36:7, as a descendant of Manasseh, on account of his descent from Machir the Manassite, on his mother’s side. ▼▼See C. v. Raumer's article on “Judaea on the east of Jordan,” in Tholuck’s litt. Anz. 1834, Nos. 1 and 2, and his Palästina, pp. 233ff. ed. 4; and for the arbitrary attempts that had been made to explain the passage by alterations of the text and in other ways, see Rosenmüller's Bibl. Alterthk. ii. 1, pp. 301-2; and Keil's Comm. on Joshua, pp. 438-9.
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