Chapter Eighteen

1. The erection of the holy tabernacle at Shiloh. 2–9. Exhortation to the Israelite tribes that have not received a lot, and a new measure toward the proper division of the remaining land. 10–20. The lot of the tribe of Benjamin and the boundaries of the lot given to it. 21–28. The cities in this lot.

Joshua 18:1. The entire assembly of the sons of Israel gathered together at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there. The land was subdued before them. When the land was conquered and the tribe of Ephraim had taken its lot in the central strip of it, the “tent of meeting” (Exod 27:21 and others) was transferred from Gilgal in the Jordan Valley to Shiloh, a city of the tribe of Ephraim. According to Judg 21:19, it was located “to the north of Bethel and to the east of the road going from Bethel to Shechem.” At present its location (discovered by the renowned geographer of Palestine Robinson) bears the name Seilun. The hill on which it was located is surrounded by other hills and covered with ruins showing signs of antiquity. Shiloh was in eight hours’ journey from Jerusalem and in four hours from Shechem. It was chosen as the place for erecting the tent of meeting, without doubt by divine direction, although the biblical writer does not speak of this. Such an understanding of the choice of Shiloh is suggested both by the statute of Deuteronomy (Deut 12:11), according to which the Lord chooses a place for the dwelling of His name (the writer of Joshua has in mind this statute in the final words of Josh 9:27), and by the words of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 7:12): “Go to my place which is at Shiloh, where I set my name to dwell.” The reason for the choice of this place for the national sanctuary lay, one can think, in the fact that the latter, being located in the middle of the Canaanite land, could be the most accessible to all the Israelite people.

Joshua 18:3. Joshua said to the Israelites, “How long will you be slack about going in to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given to you? The “neglect,” for which Joshua reproved the Israelites of the 7 tribes that had not yet received a lot, could come from their habit of nomadic life, in which the majority of the people were born and grew up, and from the awareness of the great difficulties that settled life presented for that generation of Israelites in a country in which there still remained much of the previous population, a struggle with which required much courage and exertion of strength. Such behavior on the part of the 7 tribes could not continue for long, because the conquered country, remaining for a long time without settled population, would have come into a wild state and the Canaanites remaining in places would have grown even stronger. In order to prevent in the future dissatisfactions similar to that expressed by the Ephraimites and Manassites, and to achieve the most proportionate division of the land with the composition of the tribes, Joshua took a special measure, consisting in sending selected men, three from each of the 7 tribes, who were to gather more accurate and complete information about the conquered country remaining yet undivided, and the selectees were to keep in mind how “to divide it into portions for yourselves” (Josh 18:4), that is, for the 7 tribes, or into 7 portions.

Joshua 18:9. So the men went and passed through the land. They wrote an account of it by cities in seven portions, in a book, and came back to Joshua in the camp at Shiloh. From what is said here about the execution by the selectees of the task entrusted to them, it is evident that the description of the Canaanite land they examined with the cities in it, they entered in “a book,” the indications of which were to have decisive importance in case of future disputes between the tribes concerning the possession of certain localities.

Joshua 18:10. So Joshua cast lots for them at Shiloh before the Lord, and there Joshua distributed the land to the Israelites, to each their portion. Joshua 18:11. The first lot came out for the tribe of Benjamin, according to their families. The boundary of their lot went between the sons of Judah and the sons of Joseph; Joshua 18:12. And the boundary on the north side begins at the Jordan, and the boundary goes up north side of Jericho, and goes up through the hill westward, and it ends at the wilderness of Bethaven; Joshua 18:13. The boundary goes from there to Luz, to the south side of Luz (that is, Bethel), and the boundary goes down to Ataroth-addar, to the mountain that lies to the south of lower Beth-horon; The lots were cast by Joshua at Shiloh “before the Lord,” that is, before the holy tent, as the place of special divine presence. The first lot fell to the tribe of Benjamin, which was assigned a lot “between the sons of Judah and the sons of Joseph,” that is, in the middle between the lots of the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Ephraim. As a result the northern boundary of the tribe of Benjamin coincided with the southern boundary of the tribe of Ephraim, from Jericho to lower Beth-horon, described in Josh 16:1-3.

Joshua 18:14. The boundary goes around on the south side of the mountain that lies to the south of Beth-horon, and it ends at Kiriath-baal (that is, Kiriath-jearim), a city of the Judahites. This is the western side. From the mountain that rises before Beth-horon on its southern side, the boundary turned and went “to the sea,” – that is, to the west, to the south and came out to Kiriath-baal, which bore another name Kiriath-jearim (Josh 9:17) and belonged to the tribe of Judah.

Joshua 18:15. And on the south side, from the south of Kiriath-jearim, the boundary goes in the west direction and reaches the spring of the waters of Nephtoah; The southern boundary of the tribe of Benjamin coincided with the northern boundary of the tribe of Judah, described in Josh 15:5-9, with the difference that the first is described in a direction from west to east, and the second from east to west. The first began from the “end” (in the Hebrew text “miktzeh”), according to the Greco-Slavonic translation ἀπὸ μέρους – “from the boundary of Kiriath-jearim,” that is, from the boundary of this city, went west “to the sea... to the spring of the waters of Nephtoah” (Josh 15:9).

Joshua 18:16. Then the boundary goes down to the end of the mountain that overlooks the Valley of the Ben Hinnom, at the north of the Valley of the Rephaim. The boundary goes down the Valley of the Hinnom to the south side of the Jebusites, and comes to En-rogel; Joshua 18:17. Then the boundary turns from the north and goes to En-shemesh, and goes to Geliloth, which is opposite the ascent of Adummim, and goes down to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben; Joshua 18:18. And the boundary passes along to the north of the Arabah; Joshua 18:19. Then the boundary goes down to the plain. The boundary ends at the northern bay of the Salt Sea, at the mouth of the Jordan to the south. This is the southern boundary. The east side is the Jordan. From here the boundary “goes down to the end of the mountain, which overlooks the Valley of the Ben Hinnom,” at the northern end of the Valley of the Rephaim (Josh 15:8), then descends into the Valley of Hinnom along the southern side of the Jebusites, to the spring of En-rogel, and so on. see Josh 15:5-7.

Joshua 18:21. The cities that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, according to their families, were these: Jericho, Beth-hoglah, and Emek-keziz, The cities located in the lot of the tribe of Benjamin are divided into two groups by their geographic location. The first group consisted of 12 cities located in the eastern half of the lot, namely: Jericho (Josh 2:1), Beth-hoglah (Josh 15:6), Emek-keziz (according to the Greco-Slav. translation: Amekasis). The name of this apparently city is now borne by the valley between Jerusalem and Jericho, to the southeast of the Spring of the Apostles (Josh 15:7) 168.

Joshua 18:22. Beth-arabah, Zemaraim, and Bethel, Beth-arabah (see Josh 15:6); in the latter place this city is assigned to the tribe of Judah. Zemaraim, according to the Greco-Slavonic translation Semrim, is by some indicated at the place of ruins of Samra, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho 169, by others on Mount Zemaraim, one of the mountains of Ephraim (2 Chr 13:4), Bethel (Josh 7:2).

Joshua 18:23. Avvim, Parah, and Ophrah, Avvim is unknown in its location. Parah is indicated at the place of ruins bearing the same name, in Wadi Parah, to the southwest of Jericho, in three hours’ journey from it and the same from Jerusalem. Ophrah according to Eusebius and Jerome is indicated in five Roman miles to the east of Bethel; the location of this Ophrah, distinct from Ophrah of Gideon in the tribe of Manasseh (Judg 6:11), is recognized as the village of Et-Taiybe with ruins of an ancient fortress on the summit of a hill, to the northeast of Bethel.

Joshua 18:24. Kephir-ammoni, Ophni, and Geba: thirteen cities with their villages. Of the three cities named here, the position of the last one is known – Geba (in the Greco-Slavonic translation Gavaa), which was located at the place of the present village of Jebya, situated on a high hill covered with ruins, in two and a half hours’ journey to the northeast of Jerusalem.

Joshua 18:25. Gibeon, Ramah, and Beeroth, The second group of cities of the tribe of Benjamin consisted of 14 located generally in the western half of the lot. Of these, concerning Gibeon, see Josh 9:3. Ramah was located, according to Judg 19:11-14, to the north of Jerusalem; according to Eusebius, in six Roman miles from it; in accordance with this, its location is recognized as the settlement of Er-Ram, on a high hill, with ruins of a temple and tower, in two hours’ journey to the north of Jerusalem. This Ramah was probably identical with Ramathajim-zophim or Ramah, the birthplace and dwelling place of the prophet Samuel (1 Sam 1:1, etc.). Concerning Beeroth, see Josh 9:17.

Joshua 18:26. Mizpah, Kephirah, and Moza, Joshua 18:27. Rekem, Irpeel, and Taralah, Of the 6 cities named here, only the first two are known by their geographic location. Mizpah (in the Slavonic Bible Maspha) was located on a high hill bearing the name Nebi Samwil (“the prophet Samuel”), in two hours’ journey to the northwest of Jerusalem, in half an hour to the south of Gibeon 170. Concerning Kephirah, see Josh 9:17.

Joshua 18:28. Zela, Eleph, and Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah, and Kiriath: fourteen cities with their villages. This is the lot of the tribe of Benjamin, according to their families. The location of Zela, which was the burial place of the family of King Saul (2 Sam 21:14) and Eleph, is unknown. Zela and Eleph in the Alexandrian and some other Greek manuscripts form one name Σηλαλεφ or Σελαελαφ, as also in the Slavonic Bible. Gibeah, called in other places Gibah (Judg 19:12), Gibah of Benjamin (1 Sam 13:2) or Gibah of Saul (1 Sam 11:4), is usually indicated an hour’s journey to the north of Jerusalem, on the high hill of Tell el-Ful, on the summit of which are the ruins of a tower built from ancient material 171. * * * According to prof. A. A. Olesnitsky (The Holy Land, vol. 2, 11), it is precisely the valley of Kaaziz met twenty minutes’ journey out of Jerusalem toward Jericho. The name Kaaziz the native researcher derives, however, from the word “azazel” (p. 14), not from “Ketzitz.” Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, There, p. 17–18. A description of the mountain of Samuel is found in The Holy Land, 2, et seq.; in the opinion of prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, based on local tradition, the mountain of Samuel is the same as Ramathajim-zophim in 1 Sam 1:1 and with the Gospel Emmaus. According to prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, this identification of Gibah of Saul with Tell el-Ful “has no basis whatsoever.” The Holy Land, 2, 300.