Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1116

 the village of the same name, to the south-west of Tell el Kadhy, on the range of mountains which bound the plain towards the west above Lake Huleh (Bibl. Researches, p. 371). In support of this conjecture, he laid the principal stress upon the fact that the direct road to Hamath through the Wady et Teim and the Bekaa commences here. The only circumstance which it is hard to reconcile with this conjecture is, that Beth-rehob is never mentioned in the Old Testament, with the exception of Jdg 18:28, either among the fortified towns of the Canaanites or in the wars of the Israelites with the Syrians and Assyrians, and therefore does not appear to have been a place of such importance as we should naturally be led to suppose from the character of this castle, the very situation of which points to a bold, commanding fortress (see Lynch's Expedition), and where there are still remains of its original foundations built of large square stones, hewn and grooved, and reminding one of the antique and ornamental edifices of Solomon's times (cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. pp. 242ff.). - Hamath is Epiphania on the Orontes, now Hamah (see at Gen 10:18). After the general statement, that the spies went through the whole land from the southern to the northern frontier, two facts are mentioned in Num 13:22-24, which occurred in connection with their mission, and were of great importance to the whole congregation. These single incidents are linked on, however, in a truly Hebrew style, to what precedes, viz., by an imperfect with Vav consec., just in the same manner in which, in 1Ki 6:9, 1Ki 6:15, the detailed account of the building of the temple is linked on to the previous statement, that Solomon built the temple and finished it; so that the true rendering would be, “now they ascended in the south country and came to Hebron (ויּבא is apparently an error in writing for ויּבאוּ), and there were הענק ולידי, the children of Anak,” three of whom are mentioned by name. These three, who were afterwards expelled by Caleb, when the land was divided and the city of Hebron was given to him for an inheritance (Jos 15:14; [[Bible_(King_James)/Judges|Jdg 1: