seem to indicate that Simeon received a connected portion of land in Judah, this idea is overthrown at once by the circumstance that two of the four towns in the second group were in the south land and two in the lowland, and, judging from Jos 15:32, Jos 15:42, at a great distance from one another. At the same time, we cannot decide this point with any certainty, as the situation of several of the towns is still unknown.
Verses 2-6
Jos 19:2-6Beersheba: see at Jos 15:28. Sheba is wanting in the Chronicles, but has no doubt been omitted through a copyist's error, as Shema answers to it in Jos 15:26, where it stands before Moladah just as Sheba does here. - On the names in Jos 19:3-6, see the exposition of Jos 15:28-32. - The sum total given in Jos 19:6, viz., thirteen towns, does not tally, as there are fourteen names. On these differences, see the remarks on Jos 15:32.
Verse 7
Jos 19:7Ain and Rimmon were in the south land (Jos 15:32), Ether and Ashan in the lowlands (Jos 15:42).
Verses 8-9
In addition to the towns mentioned, the Simeonites received all the villages round about the towns to Baalath-beer, the Ramah of the south. This place, up to which the territory of the Simeonites extended, though without its being actually assigned to the Simeonites, is simply called Baal in 1Ch 4:33, and is probably the same as Bealoth in Jos 15:24, though its situation has not yet been determined (see at Jos 15:24). It cannot be identified, however, with Ramet el Khulil, an hour to the north of Hebron, which Roediger supposes to be the Ramah of the south, since the territory of Simeon, which was situated in the Negeb, and had only two towns in the shephelah, cannot possibly have extended into the mountains to a point on the north of Hebron. So far as the situation is concerned, V. de Velde would be more likely to be correct, when he identifies Rama of the south with Tell Lekiyeh on the north of Beersheba, if this conjecture only rested upon a better foundation than the untenable assumption, that Baalath-beer is the same as the Baalath of Dan in Jos 19:44.
The Inheritance of Zebulun fell above the plain of Jezreel, between this plain and the mountains of Naphtali, so that it was bounded by Asher on the west and north-west (Jos 19:27), by Naphtali on the north and north-east (Jos 19:34), and by Issachar on the south-east and south, and touched neither the Mediterranean Sea nor the Jordan. It embraced a very fertile country, however, with the fine broad plain of el Buttauf, the μέγα πεδίον
