Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/182



Verse 45
Jos 15:45Ekron, i.e., Akir (see Jos 13:3). “Her daughters” are the other towns of the principality of Ekron that were dependent upon the capital, and חצרים the villages and farms.

Verse 46
Judah was also to receive “from Ekron westwards all that lay on the side of Ashdod and their (i.e., Ekron's and Ashdod's) villages.” The different places in this district are not given, because Judah never actually obtained possession of them.

Verse 47
Jos 15:47Ashdod, now Esdûd, and Gaza, now Ghuzzeh: see at Jos 13:3. Also “the daughter towns and villages, unto the brook of Egypt (Wady el Arish: see Jos 15:4), and the great sea with its territory,” i.e., the tract of land lying between Gaza and the coast of the Mediterranean. Gath and Askalon are not mentioned, because they are both of them included in the boundaries named. Askalon was between Ashdod and Gaza, by the sea-coast (see at Jos 13:3), and Gath on the east of Ekron and Ashdod (see Jos 13:3), so that, as a matter of course, it was assigned to Judah.

Verses 48-60
The towns on the mountains are divided into five, or more correctly, into six groups. The mountains of Judah, which rise precipitously from the Negeb, between the hilly district on the west, which is reckoned as part of the shephelah, and the desert of Judah, extending to the Dead Sea on the east (Jos 15:61), attain the height of 3000 feet above the level of the sea, in the neighbourhood of Hebron, and run northwards to the broad wady of Beit-hanina, above Jerusalem. They are a large rugged range of limestone mountains, with many barren and naked peaks, whilst the sides are for the most part covered with grass, shrubs, bushes, and trees, and the whole range is intersected by many very fruitful valleys. Josephus describes it as abounding in corn, fruit, and wine; and to the present day it contains many orchards, olive grounds, and vineyards, rising in terraces up the sides of the mountains, whilst the valleys and lower grounds yield plentiful harvests of wheat, millet, and other kinds of corn. In ancient times, therefore, the whole of this district was thickly covered with towns (see Rob. ii. pp. 185, 191-2, and C. v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 45ff.).