16:1 VA YETS'E HA GORAL LIVNEY YOSEPH MI YARDEN YERIYCHO LE MEY YERIYCHO MIZRACHAH HA MIDBAR OLEH MIYRIYCHO BA HAR BEIT-EL
וַיֵּצֵא הַגֹּורָל לִבְנֵי יֹוסֵף מִיַּרְדֵּן יְרִיחֹו לְמֵי יְרִיחֹו מִזְרָחָה הַמִּדְבָּר עֹלֶה מִירִיחֹו בָּהָר בֵּית אֵל
KJ: And the lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho, unto the water of Jericho on the east, to the wilderness that goeth up from Jericho throughout mount Bethel.
BN: And the lot of the Beney Yoseph fell from the Yarden by Yericho, as far as the water of Yericho on the east, to the wilderness that goes up from Yericho throughout Mount Beit-El.
BENEY YOSEPH: Does that mean that Ephrayim and west Menasheh are now being treated as a single tribe? See verse 4.
And if so, and actually even if they are not, Yehudah, Ephrayim and the combined halves of Menasheh have just acquired way more land between them than the other nine tribes put together, with beloved younger brother Bin-Yamin neatly tucked between them, and holding the future capital, Yeru-Shala'im, and everyone else pushed out to the peripheries. Compare a map of Celtic Briton, at the time of the Anglo-Saxon conquest!
But it is actually worse, because the Ango-Saxons simply pushed the Celts to the edges - Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, Brittany. But the Beney Yoseph also took key towns inside several of their neighbouring tribes, as we shall see in the following chapters, while Dan would soon be removed altogether, and Shim'on from the outset was landlocked inside Yehudah (just as he was held hostage in Mitsrayim previously!).
YARDEN: See the link.
YERIYCHO: Yericho, Yare'acho, Yareyacho, Yerecho - towns change their names as language evolves, or different people with different accents come along and pronounce them differently. And sometimes those changes are total - Kiryat Arba (see Joshua 15:54) becoming Chevron, Banyas becoming Caesarea Philippi, Yeru-Shala'im becoming Aelia Capitolina. At different points of the Tanach we have all five of these variations on Jericho, and they really are the same town.
And we still have no information about how these territories were determined, or how these lots were drawn.
16:2 VA YATS'A MI BEIT-EL LUZAH VE AVAR EL GEVUL HA ARKI ATAROT
KJ: And goeth out from Bethel to Luz, and passeth along unto the borders of Archi to Ataroth.
BN: And it went up from Beit-El to Luz, and passed along to the borders of the Arki to Atarot.
From Beit-El to Luz? Genesis 28:19 identifies the two as the same place. Some translations hyphenate it into Bethel-Luz, but the grammar here makes clear that they are two places; perhaps adjacent, but still two. When we speak of the Vatican we automatically think of Rome, though in fact the Vatican is technically an independent kingdom (Christendom?), and not part of Rome at all. Given Beit-El's status as a holy place, the analogy is a good one. Probably Beit-El was the shrine, and Luz, originally an almond grove and therefore quite likely a shrine too, the nearby town (and bear in mind that shrines in those days were not necessarily entire buildings; a stone teraph, a scarecrow, a sacred tree, a small cave, might well have been enough to propitiate the gods - think of Hindu shrines, sometimes a mere nook inside a person's shop or house: click here).
ARKI: See the link.
I am unclear why the KJ has translported these verses into the present tense, when the text is in the past tense. This applies to the verses that follow, though the translator reverts to the past tense in verse 5.
16:3 VE YARAD YAMAH EL GEVUL HA YAPHLEYTI AD GEVUL BEIT CHORON TACHTON VE AD GAZER VE HAYU TOTS'OTAV YAMAH
KJ: And goeth down westward to the coast of Japhleti, unto the coast of Bethhoron the nether, and to Gezer: and the goings out thereof are at the sea.
BN: And went down westward to the border of the Yaphleyti, as far as the border of Lower Beit Choron, and thence to Gazer; its terminus was at the sea.
YAPHLEYTI: Why have we never heard of the Yaphleyti until this moment? (Nor will we, ever again).
BEIT CHORON: The lower as opposed to the upper - two towns that do have the same name, as we also know from 1 Chronicles 7:24 and 2 Chronicles 8:5; the upper part will get its mention in verse 5. Very important towns too, at several points of history - see the first link on this note for more detail, though it doesn't include the modern "liberation" of Yeru-Shala'im in the 6-Day War, which also went through Beit Choron. See also Joshua 10:10/11 and 18:13/14.
GAZER: See Joshua 10:33, 12:12 and 21:21; also 1 Kings 9:15-17 (this last is relevant to verse 10).
YAMAH: Which sea? The common view is that Ephrayim was land-locked (see the map, above), so this has to mean West Menasheh; East Menasheh also comes down to a sea, but in its case the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kineret).
16:4 VA YINCHALU VENEY YOSEPH MENASHEH VE EPHRAYIM
KJ: So the children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance.
BN: So the Beney Yoseph, Menasheh and Ephrayim, took their inheritance.
Which appears to confirm that the sons were still regarded as connected, and sets us to wondering, even though the text of Genesis does not explicitly say so, were they in fact biological twins? The manner of the blessing suggests that they may well have been.
16:5 VA YEHI GEVUL BENEY EPHRAYIM LE MISHPECHOTAM VA YEHI GEVUL NACHALATAM MIZRACHAH ATROT ADAR AD BEIT CHORON ELYON
KJ: And the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families was thus: even the border of their inheritance on the east side was Atarothaddar, unto Bethhoron the upper.
BN: And the border of the Beney Ephrayim, according to their clans, was thus: the border of their inheritance on the east side was Atrot Adar, as far as upper Beit Choron.
ATROT ADAR: Is this the same as Atarot in verse 7? Atarot mean "crowns", and presumably they are figurative here - probably the twin peaks of the mountain.
BEIT CHORON: See my note to verse 3.
KJ: And the border went out toward the sea to Michmethah on the north side; and the border went about eastward unto Taanathshiloh, and passed by it on the east to Janohah.
BN: And the border turned westwards on the north side of Michmetah; then the border turned east towards Ta'anat Shiloh, and by-passed it on the east side at Yanochah.
YAMAH: And again: which sea? The attached link is extremely graphic in pointing out that there is no sea anywhere near Michmetah.
MICHMETAH: From the description, it must have been a suburb of, or at least a close neighbour of Shechem, which is today's Nablus - the Dead Sea, Kineret and the Mediterranean are all about equally distant from it, with emphasis on the word "distant"; and to get to any of these would have required Ephrayim crossing someone else's tribal land, Bin-Yamin for the Dead Sea, Menasheh and then Yisaschar for Kineret, Dan for the Mediterranean.
YANOCHAH: Is this another dative error, should it be YANOCH? The next verse insists on YANOCHAH. A feminine equivalent then, as with Dan and Dinah, many others.
16:7 VE YARAD MI YANOCHAH ATAROT VE NA'ARATAH U PHAGA BIYRIYCHO VE YATS'A HA YARDEN
KJ: And it went down from Janohah to Ataroth, and to Naarath, and came to Jericho, and went out at Jordan.
BN: And it went down from Yanochah to Atarot, and to Na'arat, and came to Yeriycho, and ended at the Yarden.
ATAROT: See also ATROT ADAR in verse 5. Probably different towns, but both rooted in the same word.
NA'ARAT: And funny coincidence, having just decided that YANOCHAH was probably a town with a feminine name, the root of this is NA'ARAH, which means a young girl, pre-adolescent but well past kindergarten.
16:8 MI TAPU'ACH YELECH HA GEVUL YAMAH NACHAL KANAH VE HAYU TOTSOTAV HA YAMAH ZOT NACHALAT MATEH VENEY EPHRAYIM LE MISHPECHOTAM
KJ: The border went out from Tappuah westward unto the river Kanah; and the goings out thereof were at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Ephraim by their families
BN: The border then went westward from Tapu'ach to the river Kanah; and its terminus was at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the Beney Ephraim by their clans.
TAPU'ACH: see Joshua 12 and 15; also here for Ein Tapu'ach, which we will encounterat Joshua 17:7.
KANAH: See the link.
YAMAH: And for a third time: which sea? It has to mean the Mediterranean on this occasion, because this is the western border of Ephrayim, and the territories of the tribes of Dan, at least at this moment of history, and Menasheh, blocked Ephrayim's access to the sea; see the map adjacent to verse 3. The obvious possibility is the one inferred by verse 1, that in some manner the Beney Yoseph had a special relationship, and therefore Ephrayim had open access to the Mediterranean in its extreme north-west; or even that, like Shim'on in Yehudah, Dan was somehow a sub-territory of Ephrayim.
16:9 VE HE ARIM HA MIVDALOT LIVNEY EPHRAYIM BETOCH NACHALAT BENEY MENASHEH KOL HE ARIM VE CHATSREYHEN
KJ: And the separate cities for the children of Ephraim were among the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages.
BN: And the separated cities of the Beney Ephrayim were among the inheritance of the Beney of Menasheh, all the cities with their villages.
HE ARIM HA MIVDALOT: The what!!! Just to be clear, in this complete Balkans of a national arrangement, some of Ephrayim's inheritance was "inside" Menasheh, just as Shim'on was landlocked inside Yehudah? Why would that be? Perhaps because the tribal divisions belong to a much later period, superimposed on wherever the tribes happened to live, and those cities were Ephrayimite. Perhaps deliberately, to enable the twin brothers to maintain a family connection. The trouble is, as stated many times, we simply don't know how and why or even when these "counties" or "states" or "principalities" or "thanedoms" or whatever-they-were were set up in the first place...
KJ: And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.
BN: But they did not drive out the Kena'ani who dwelt in Gazer: indeed, the Kena'ani dwell among the Ephrayimites to this day, and undertake forced labour.
GAZER: See my note to verse 3.
YERIYCHO: Yericho, Yare'acho, Yareyacho, Yerecho - towns change their names as language evolves, or different people with different accents come along and pronounce them differently. And sometimes those changes are total - Kiryat Arba (see Joshua 15:54) becoming Chevron, Banyas becoming Caesarea Philippi, Yeru-Shala'im becoming Aelia Capitolina. At different points of the Tanach we have all five of these variations on Jericho, and they really are the same town.
And we still have no information about how these territories were determined, or how these lots were drawn.
16:2 VA YATS'A MI BEIT-EL LUZAH VE AVAR EL GEVUL HA ARKI ATAROT
וְיָצָא מִבֵּית אֵל לוּזָה וְעָבַר אֶל גְּבוּל הָאַרְכִּי עֲטָרֹות
KJ: And goeth out from Bethel to Luz, and passeth along unto the borders of Archi to Ataroth.
BN: And it went up from Beit-El to Luz, and passed along to the borders of the Arki to Atarot.
From Beit-El to Luz? Genesis 28:19 identifies the two as the same place. Some translations hyphenate it into Bethel-Luz, but the grammar here makes clear that they are two places; perhaps adjacent, but still two. When we speak of the Vatican we automatically think of Rome, though in fact the Vatican is technically an independent kingdom (Christendom?), and not part of Rome at all. Given Beit-El's status as a holy place, the analogy is a good one. Probably Beit-El was the shrine, and Luz, originally an almond grove and therefore quite likely a shrine too, the nearby town (and bear in mind that shrines in those days were not necessarily entire buildings; a stone teraph, a scarecrow, a sacred tree, a small cave, might well have been enough to propitiate the gods - think of Hindu shrines, sometimes a mere nook inside a person's shop or house: click here).
ARKI: See the link.
I am unclear why the KJ has translported these verses into the present tense, when the text is in the past tense. This applies to the verses that follow, though the translator reverts to the past tense in verse 5.
16:3 VE YARAD YAMAH EL GEVUL HA YAPHLEYTI AD GEVUL BEIT CHORON TACHTON VE AD GAZER VE HAYU TOTS'OTAV YAMAH
וְיָרַד יָמָּה אֶל גְּבוּל הַיַּפְלֵטִי עַד גְּבוּל בֵּית חֹורֹן תַּחְתֹּון וְעַד גָּזֶר וְהָיוּ [תֹצְאֹתֹו כ] (תֹצְאֹתָיו ק) יָמָּה
KJ: And goeth down westward to the coast of Japhleti, unto the coast of Bethhoron the nether, and to Gezer: and the goings out thereof are at the sea.
BN: And went down westward to the border of the Yaphleyti, as far as the border of Lower Beit Choron, and thence to Gazer; its terminus was at the sea.
YAPHLEYTI: Why have we never heard of the Yaphleyti until this moment? (Nor will we, ever again).
BEIT CHORON: The lower as opposed to the upper - two towns that do have the same name, as we also know from 1 Chronicles 7:24 and 2 Chronicles 8:5; the upper part will get its mention in verse 5. Very important towns too, at several points of history - see the first link on this note for more detail, though it doesn't include the modern "liberation" of Yeru-Shala'im in the 6-Day War, which also went through Beit Choron. See also Joshua 10:10/11 and 18:13/14.
GAZER: See Joshua 10:33, 12:12 and 21:21; also 1 Kings 9:15-17 (this last is relevant to verse 10).
YAMAH: Which sea? The common view is that Ephrayim was land-locked (see the map, above), so this has to mean West Menasheh; East Menasheh also comes down to a sea, but in its case the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kineret).
16:4 VA YINCHALU VENEY YOSEPH MENASHEH VE EPHRAYIM
וַיִּנְחֲלוּ בְנֵי יֹוסֵף מְנַשֶּׁה וְאֶפְרָיִם
BN: So the Beney Yoseph, Menasheh and Ephrayim, took their inheritance.
Which appears to confirm that the sons were still regarded as connected, and sets us to wondering, even though the text of Genesis does not explicitly say so, were they in fact biological twins? The manner of the blessing suggests that they may well have been.
And one last point, just to complete this portrait of the take-over of the land, not by the Beney Yisra-El at all really, but by the family of Yoseph, and by Yehudah, the only one of the sons to try to look after Yoseph when his brothers abducted and trafficked him: a) his mother was Rachel, and her tomb is located at Beit Lechem, which is in the tribe of Yehudah - click here. The first king of Yisra-El, Sha'ul, came from the tribe of Rachel's other son, Bin-Yamin, and Yeru-Shala'im was in its territory. His successor, David, came from the tribe of Yehudah, and specifically, again, the town of Beit Lechem.
16:5 VA YEHI GEVUL BENEY EPHRAYIM LE MISHPECHOTAM VA YEHI GEVUL NACHALATAM MIZRACHAH ATROT ADAR AD BEIT CHORON ELYON
וַיְהִי גְּבוּל בְּנֵי אֶפְרַיִם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם וַיְהִי גְּבוּל נַחֲלָתָם מִזְרָחָה עַטְרֹות אַדָּר עַד בֵּית חֹורֹן עֶלְיֹון
KJ: And the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families was thus: even the border of their inheritance on the east side was Atarothaddar, unto Bethhoron the upper.
BN: And the border of the Beney Ephrayim, according to their clans, was thus: the border of their inheritance on the east side was Atrot Adar, as far as upper Beit Choron.
ATROT ADAR: Is this the same as Atarot in verse 7? Atarot mean "crowns", and presumably they are figurative here - probably the twin peaks of the mountain.
BEIT CHORON: See my note to verse 3.
16:6 VA YATS'A HA GEVUL HA YAMAH HA MICHMETAH MI TSAPHON VE NASAV HA GEVUL MIZRACHAH TA'ANAT SHILOH VE AVAR OTO MI MIZRACH YANOCHAH
וְיָצָא הַגְּבוּל הַיָּמָּה הַמִּכְמְתָת מִצָּפֹון וְנָסַב הַגְּבוּל מִזְרָחָה תַּאֲנַת שִׁלֹה וְעָבַר אֹותֹו מִמִּזְרַח יָנֹוחָה
KJ: And the border went out toward the sea to Michmethah on the north side; and the border went about eastward unto Taanathshiloh, and passed by it on the east to Janohah.
BN: And the border turned westwards on the north side of Michmetah; then the border turned east towards Ta'anat Shiloh, and by-passed it on the east side at Yanochah.
YAMAH: And again: which sea? The attached link is extremely graphic in pointing out that there is no sea anywhere near Michmetah.
MICHMETAH: From the description, it must have been a suburb of, or at least a close neighbour of Shechem, which is today's Nablus - the Dead Sea, Kineret and the Mediterranean are all about equally distant from it, with emphasis on the word "distant"; and to get to any of these would have required Ephrayim crossing someone else's tribal land, Bin-Yamin for the Dead Sea, Menasheh and then Yisaschar for Kineret, Dan for the Mediterranean.
Can we then conclude that YAMAH, on this occasion, is being used as a compass-direction, and not as a geographical location? And that the sea in question was the Mediterranean? My translation reflects this.
TA'ANAT SHILOH: This needs some geographical research but it appears to be a second Shiloh, and not the one where the Ark was kept. And isn't that Shiloh an error for Ha Shilo'ach (הַשִּׁלֹחַ) anyway - see Isaiah 8:6. Eusebius' description. as per the link, makes me wonder (but only for a passing moment, because the next verse confirms that YAMAH must have been westward, in order to come back eastward further north... ) if by YAMAH the writer didn't actually mean "sea" at all, but was using it to mean the river - because the Yarden is not that far away, though very narrow at this point.
TA'ANAT SHILOH: This needs some geographical research but it appears to be a second Shiloh, and not the one where the Ark was kept. And isn't that Shiloh an error for Ha Shilo'ach (הַשִּׁלֹחַ) anyway - see Isaiah 8:6. Eusebius' description. as per the link, makes me wonder (but only for a passing moment, because the next verse confirms that YAMAH must have been westward, in order to come back eastward further north... ) if by YAMAH the writer didn't actually mean "sea" at all, but was using it to mean the river - because the Yarden is not that far away, though very narrow at this point.
YANOCHAH: Is this another dative error, should it be YANOCH? The next verse insists on YANOCHAH. A feminine equivalent then, as with Dan and Dinah, many others.
16:7 VE YARAD MI YANOCHAH ATAROT VE NA'ARATAH U PHAGA BIYRIYCHO VE YATS'A HA YARDEN
וְיָרַד מִיָּנֹוחָה עֲטָרֹות וְנַעֲרָתָה וּפָגַע בִּירִיחֹו וְיָצָא הַיַּרְדֵּן
BN: And it went down from Yanochah to Atarot, and to Na'arat, and came to Yeriycho, and ended at the Yarden.
ATAROT: See also ATROT ADAR in verse 5. Probably different towns, but both rooted in the same word.
NA'ARAT: And funny coincidence, having just decided that YANOCHAH was probably a town with a feminine name, the root of this is NA'ARAH, which means a young girl, pre-adolescent but well past kindergarten.
16:8 MI TAPU'ACH YELECH HA GEVUL YAMAH NACHAL KANAH VE HAYU TOTSOTAV HA YAMAH ZOT NACHALAT MATEH VENEY EPHRAYIM LE MISHPECHOTAM
מִתַּפּוּחַ יֵלֵךְ הַגְּבוּל יָמָּה נַחַל קָנָה וְהָיוּ תֹצְאֹתָיו הַיָּמָּה זֹאת נַחֲלַת מַטֵּה בְנֵי אֶפְרַיִם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם
BN: The border then went westward from Tapu'ach to the river Kanah; and its terminus was at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the Beney Ephraim by their clans.
TAPU'ACH: see Joshua 12 and 15; also here for Ein Tapu'ach, which we will encounterat Joshua 17:7.
KANAH: See the link.
YAMAH: And for a third time: which sea? It has to mean the Mediterranean on this occasion, because this is the western border of Ephrayim, and the territories of the tribes of Dan, at least at this moment of history, and Menasheh, blocked Ephrayim's access to the sea; see the map adjacent to verse 3. The obvious possibility is the one inferred by verse 1, that in some manner the Beney Yoseph had a special relationship, and therefore Ephrayim had open access to the Mediterranean in its extreme north-west; or even that, like Shim'on in Yehudah, Dan was somehow a sub-territory of Ephrayim.
16:9 VE HE ARIM HA MIVDALOT LIVNEY EPHRAYIM BETOCH NACHALAT BENEY MENASHEH KOL HE ARIM VE CHATSREYHEN
וְהֶעָרִים הַמִּבְדָּלֹות לִבְנֵי אֶפְרַיִם בְּתֹוךְ נַחֲלַת בְּנֵי מְנַשֶּׁה כָּל הֶעָרִים וְחַצְרֵיהֶן
BN: And the separated cities of the Beney Ephrayim were among the inheritance of the Beney of Menasheh, all the cities with their villages.
HE ARIM HA MIVDALOT: The what!!! Just to be clear, in this complete Balkans of a national arrangement, some of Ephrayim's inheritance was "inside" Menasheh, just as Shim'on was landlocked inside Yehudah? Why would that be? Perhaps because the tribal divisions belong to a much later period, superimposed on wherever the tribes happened to live, and those cities were Ephrayimite. Perhaps deliberately, to enable the twin brothers to maintain a family connection. The trouble is, as stated many times, we simply don't know how and why or even when these "counties" or "states" or "principalities" or "thanedoms" or whatever-they-were were set up in the first place...
... but all that is pseudo-history. What we do know is that the layout of the land was intended to mirror the cosmology of the heavens, using the twelve constellations for tribes, locating the planets, using the decans within that. So does Shim'on landlocked inside Yehudah, or tribal towns in other territories, in fact reflect the constantly changing pattern of the heavens, so that sometimes you can see Venus in, say, Pisces, but at other times in, perhaps Aquarius?
16:10 VE LO HORIYSHU ET HA KENA'ANI HA YOSHEV BE GAZER VA YESHEV HA KENA'ANI BE KEREV EPHRAYIM AD HA YOM HA ZEH VA YEHI LE MAS OVED
16:10 VE LO HORIYSHU ET HA KENA'ANI HA YOSHEV BE GAZER VA YESHEV HA KENA'ANI BE KEREV EPHRAYIM AD HA YOM HA ZEH VA YEHI LE MAS OVED
וְלֹא הֹורִישׁוּ אֶת הַכְּנַעֲנִי הַיֹּושֵׁב בְּגָזֶר וַיֵּשֶׁב הַכְּנַעֲנִי בְּקֶרֶב אֶפְרַיִם עַד הַיֹּום הַזֶּה וַיְהִי לְמַס עֹבֵד
KJ: And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.
BN: But they did not drive out the Kena'ani who dwelt in Gazer: indeed, the Kena'ani dwell among the Ephrayimites to this day, and undertake forced labour.
GAZER: See my note to verse 3.
LE MAS OVED: Samechs (ס) are frequently used to denote foreign words that have entered the language, where a Seen (ש) is used for native words; we do not know on this occasion, but the possibility has to be considered, as it is a fairly obscure word, whose precise meaning is uncertain. 1 Kings 9:21 uses it, and there is no question there that it means "slave-labour", which is a great deal stronger than "serve under tribute" as in the KJ here. 2 Chronicles 8:8 recounts the same episode as in Kings, and uses the same term. However Deuteronomy 20:11 uses the word alongside AVADUCHAH, and it is the latter that means "slaves", MAS there being servants, or possibly "indentured labourers", but not fully-fledged "slaves". Judges 1:30, 33, 35 use the word exactly as here... and there are many other occasions, all of them listed in Gesenius if you are interested in following this through. Probably we are arguing over split hairs: slavery is slavery is slavery, whether it is a zero hours contract in a retail store or chains on a tobacco plantation: but it matters to our understanding of the exact position of the Habiru in Mitsrayim at the start of the Mosheh story. Were they in fact slaves, or hired labourers, forced labourers, indentured labourers, contracted labourers...?
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