Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/115

 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