12:1 VE ELEH MALCHEY HA ARETS ASHER HIKU VENEY YISRA-EL VA YIRSHU ET ARTSAM BE EVER HA YARDEN MIZRECHAH HA SHAMESH MI NACHAL ARNON AD HAR CHERMON VE CHOL HA ARAVAH MIZRACHAH
וְאֵלֶּה מַלְכֵי הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר הִכּוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּרְשׁוּ אֶת אַרְצָם בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן מִזְרְחָה הַשָּׁמֶשׁ מִנַּחַל אַרְנֹון עַד הַר חֶרְמֹון וְכָל הָעֲרָבָה מִזְרָחָה
BN (BibleNet translation): Now these are the kings of the land, who the Beney Yisra-El defeated, and took possession of their land on the eastern side of the Yarden, from the river Arnon as far as Mount Chermon, and all of the Aravah on the east.
YARDEN: See the link.
ARNON: Today's Wadi Majub. From the Arnon to Chermon essentially means the Golan Heights.
CHERMON: See the link.
Anything east of the Yarden means the territories of Re'u-Ven, Gad and half-Menasheh, in the lands of the Beney Mo-Av, the Beney Amon and the Beney Aram.
12:2 SICHON MELECH HA EMORI HA YOSHEV BE CHESHBON MOSHEL ME ARO'ER ASHER AL SEPHAT NACHAL ARNON VE TOCH HA NACHAL VA CHATSI HA GIL'AD VE AD YABOK HA NACHAL GEVUL BENEY AMON
סִיחֹון מֶלֶךְ הָאֱמֹרִי הַיֹּושֵׁב בְּחֶשְׁבֹּון מֹשֵׁל מֵעֲרֹועֵר אֲשֶׁר עַל שְׂפַת נַחַל אַרְנֹון וְתֹוךְ הַנַּחַל וַחֲצִי הַגִּלְעָד וְעַד יַבֹּק הַנַּחַל גְּבוּל בְּנֵי עַמֹּון
BN: Sichon king of the Emori, who lived in Cheshbon, and ruled from Aro'er, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and from the middle of the river; and from half Gil'ad, as far as the river Yavok, which is the border of the Beney Amon
On one level this is just a list of scalps; on the other, by defining the geographical boundaries, it provided both a geographical and a political map.
Sichon was already taken by Mosheh (Deuteronomy 1:4 ff), as per verse 6.
EMOR: See the link.
CHESHBON: See the link.
ARO'ER: See the link.
GIL'AD: See the link.
Sichon was already taken by Mosheh (Deuteronomy 1:4 ff), as per verse 6.
EMOR: See the link.
CHESHBON: See the link.
ARO'ER: See the link.
GIL'AD: See the link.
YAVOK: See the link.
12:3 VE HA ARAVAH AD YAM KINROT MIZRACHAH VE AD YAM HA ARAVAH YAM HA MELACH MIZRACHAH DERECH BEIT HA YESHIMOT U MI TEYMAN TACHAT ASHDOT HA PISGAH
וְהָעֲרָבָה עַד יָם כִּנְרֹות מִזְרָחָה וְעַד יָם הָעֲרָבָה יָם הַמֶּלַח מִזְרָחָה דֶּרֶךְ בֵּית הַיְשִׁמֹות וּמִתֵּימָן תַּחַת אַשְׁדֹּות הַפִּסְגָּה
BN: And from the plain to the east bank of the Sea of Kinrot, and as far as the Sea of the Plain, which is to say the east bank of Yam ha Melach by way of Beit Yeshimot; and from the south, under Ashdot ha Pisgah.
Which describes a far bigger territory than is ever described again, and certainly not the one acquired by King Sha'ul. So is this a genuine historical claim, or a retrospective land-grab to justify a later claim? And note again, as per verse 1, this is all "territory east of the Yarden", so we can confirm that the area known Biblically as the Aravah was not simply the area by that name in today's Israel , but the name for a much wider region.
KINROT: Kinrot rather than Kineret; I commented on this at verse 2 in the previous chapter, where the spelling was different and other evidence in the text suggested a different place which happened to have a similar name. It may be that the difference was an error by the medieval Masoretes, who added the pointing, but got it wrong; and that they did the same here, turning Kineret into Kinrot. This time, however, the name includes Yam, which means "sea", so we can say for certain that it is the Sea of Galilee.
YAM HA MELACH: See the link.
TEYMAN: rather than NEGEV. A comon variation throughout these texts, though there does seem to be a general rule that Teyman (which is modern Yemen, at the southernmost tip of Arabia, on the eastern side of the Red Sea), is used for "south" when we are east of the Yarden (which presumably once ran all the way to the Red Sea, before the volcanic eruption that created the Dead Sea also brought that journey to an end), whereas Negev (which is the name of the desert on the west of the Yarden that goes all the way to the Red Sea on that side) is used for southern Kena'an/Israel.
ASHDOT: An error in the text? 10:40 has ASHEDOT (אֲשֵׁדֹות) with a Tsere (two dots side-by-side) under the the Sheen (שֵׁ). The root is ESHED, and indicates the act of "pouring out", which is why an Ashedah is the word for a fountain or spring that emerges naturally in the hills and mountains (cf Numbers 21:15).
ASHDOT HA PISGAH is also mentioned, and spelled as here, in Deuteronomy 3:17).
PISGAH: Pisgah means the "summit" of a mountain, so the fact that Mosheh died on Pisgat ha-Har, "the summit of the mountain", does not make the two the same; Mosheh's mountain was Mount Avarim (or possibly Mount Ivrim) in the range known as Nevo.
I am inclined not to name this place Ashdot ha Pisgah, but to translate it. A revised rendition of this verse would then be:
BN (alternative/revised translation): And from the plain to the east bank of the Sea of Kinrot, and as far as the Sea of the Plain, which is to say the east bank of Yam ha Melach by way of Beit Yeshimot; and from the south, under the springs that flow down from the summit of the mountain.
12:4 U GEVUL OG MELECH HA BASHAN MI YETER HA REPHA'IM HA YOSHEV BA ASHTAROT U VE EDRE'I
וּגְבוּל עֹוג מֶלֶךְ הַבָּשָׁן מִיֶּתֶר הָרְפָאִים הַיֹּושֵׁב בְּעַשְׁתָּרֹות וּבְאֶדְרֶעִי
BN: And the border of Og, king of Ha Bashan, who was one of the last remaining of the race of giants that dwelt at Ashtarot and at Edre'i...
GEVUL is a border, not a coast, though coasts are often used to define borders. The east coast of Kineret, noted above, was the border of Bashan. Note that it is called Ha Bashan, here and elsewhere - HA being the definite article. Today we would say "The Lebanon" and "The Gambia" but not "The Syria" or "The Ghana", and we don't know why either! (and in the last few chapters we have seen both Ai and Gil-Gal with and then without the definite article)
Is this Ashterot Karnayim, or somewhere else? Ashterot were sacred trees (the female sort, the male ones were Asherim), or sometimes trees stripped down as totem poles, and used for the "Rites of Asherah", so there are likely to have been as many places named Ashterot as there are May Day festivals on village greens.
OG: Like Sichon, we have encountered Og of Bashan previously (Numbers 21:33 et al); another of the Mosaic conquests before Yehoshu'a took over.
HA BASHAN: as above.
EDRE'I: Not to be confused with EDER, which is spelled with an Aleph (א). This one is well out to the east of the Golan Heights.
12:5 U MOSHEL BE HAR CHERMON U VE SALCHAH U VE CHOL HA BASHAN AD GEVUL HA GESHURI VE HA MA'ACHATI VA CHATSI HA GIL'AD GEVUL SICHON MELECH CHESHBON
וּמֹשֵׁל בְּהַר חֶרְמֹון וּבְסַלְכָה וּבְכָל הַבָּשָׁן עַד גְּבוּל הַגְּשׁוּרִי וְהַמַּעֲכָתִי וַחֲצִי הַגִּלְעָד גְּבוּל סִיחֹון מֶלֶךְ חֶשְׁבֹּון
BN: And he reigned on Mount Chermon, and at Salchah, and throughout Ha Bashan, as far as the border of the Geshuri and the Ma'achati and half Gil'ad; this was the border of Sichon king of Cheshbon.
SALCHAH: See the link.
GESHURI: See the link.
MA'ACHATI: See the link.
12:6 MOSHEH EVED YHVH U VENEY YISRA-EL HIKUM VA YITNAH MOSHEH EVED YHVH YERUSHAH LA RE'U-VENI VE LA GADI VE LA CHATSI SHEVET HA MENASHEH
מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד יְהוָה וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הִכּוּם וַיִּתְּנָהּ מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד יְהוָה יְרֻשָּׁה לָרֻאוּבֵנִי וְלַגָּדִי וְלַחֲצִי שֵׁבֶט הַמְנַשֶּׁה
BN: Them did Mosheh the servant of YHVH and the Beney Yisra-El defeat. And Mosheh the servant of YHVH gave it as a possession to the Beney Re'u-Ven, and the Gadi, and the half-tribe of Menasheh.
samech break
12:7 VE ELEH MALCHEY HA ARETS ASHER HIKAH YEHOSHU'A U VENEY YISRA-EL BE EVER HA YARDEN YAMAH MI BA'AL GAD BE VIK'AT HA LEVANON VE AD HA HAR HECHALAK HA OLEH SE'IRAH VA YITNAH YEHOSHU'A LE SHIVTEY YISRA-EL YERUSHAH KE MACHLEKOTAM
וְאֵלֶּה מַלְכֵי הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר הִכָּה יְהֹושֻׁעַ וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן יָמָּה מִבַּעַל גָּד בְּבִקְעַת הַלְּבָנֹון וְעַד הָהָר הֶחָלָק הָעֹלֶה שֵׂעִירָה וַיִּתְּנָהּ יְהֹושֻׁעַ לְשִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יְרֻשָּׁה כְּמַחְלְקֹתָם
BN: And these are the kings of the lands which Yehoshu'a and the Beney Yisra-El smote on this western side of the Yarden, from Ba'al Gad in the valley of Levanon as far as the Chalak Pass, which goes up to Se'ir; all of which Yehoshu'a gave to the tribes of Yisra-El as a possession, according to the lots that they drew.
SE'IR: See the link.
KE MACHLEKOTAM: When Chalak came up in the previous chapter, I noted a complexity with the root. At that time it only related to the geographical CHALAK, determining whether it was itself a mountain, or in fact the gorge that "divided" two hills; now the play on words is repeated, the process of "division" being the drawing of lots.
CHALAK: For "division" and "separation" modern Ivrit has, in addition to LECHALEK (לְחַלֵק) and its reflective LEHITCHALEK (לְהִתְחַלֵק): LEPHATSEL (לְפַצֵל), LEHAPHRID (לְהַפרִיד), LACHALOK (לַחֲלוֹק), LEPHALEG (לְפַלֵג), LEHAVDIL (לְהַבדִיל), LECHATSOT (לַחֲצוֹת) and LESHASE'AH (לְשַׁסֵעַ). So we can say that the choice of CHALAK is entirely deliberate. See also Joshua 13:6.
12:8 BA HAR U VA SHEPHELAH U VA ARAVAH U VA ASHEDOT U VA MIDBAR U VA NEGEV HA CHITI HA EMORI VE HA KENA'ANI HE PERIZI HA CHIVI VE HA YEVUSI
בָּהָר וּבַשְּׁפֵלָה וּבָעֲרָבָה וּבָאֲשֵׁדֹות וּבַמִּדְבָּר וּבַנֶּגֶב הַחִתִּי הָאֱמֹרִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי הַפְּרִזִּי הַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי
KJ: In the mountains, and in the valleys, and in the plains, and in the springs, and in the wilderness, and in the south country; the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites:
BN: In the mountains, and in the valleys, and in the plains, and in the springs, and in the desert, and in the south country; the Chiti, the Emori, and the Kena'ani, the Perizi, the Chivi, and the Yevusi...
SHEPHELAH: Translated by KJ as "valleys", but there is a specific area of Kena'an known as "The Shephelah".
pey break
12:9 MELECH YERIYCHO ECHAD MELECH HA AI ASHER BEIT-EL ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ יְרִיחֹו אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ הָעַי אֲשֶׁר מִצַּד בֵּית אֵל אֶחָד
BN: The king of Yericho, one; the king of Ha Ai, which is Beit-El, one;
Very much a trophy list! Note the connection (again!) of Ha Ai and Beit-El; but the text does not say "beside", as per the KJ translation: it says that Ha Ai is Beit-El.
YERIYCHO: Yet another variation on the spelling; with a second Yud on this occasion. Yerecho, Yericho, Yare'acho...
HA AI: See my note to HA BASHAN in verse 4.
ECHAD: Why would there ever be more than one king in any town, country or city-state? A secular and a priest-king, ruling side-by-side? A father with his son as Prince Regent? Perhaps, occasionally, but this verse and all the following insist on making the point each time. And why? Because, like me, they are counting the number of the kings, which is far more significant than their names or even their locations. And I have prepped you to be expecting twelve of them, one for each of the stellar constellations. Oh, dear, I think I may have misled you, and only now am I realising why. We started at a moon-shrine, did we not? At Yericho. They are all moon-shrines. So why on earth - no, I don't mean "earth" - why in Mare Cognitum have I been expecting stellar constellations?
12:10 MELECH YERUSHALA'IM ECHAD MELECH CHEVRON ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ חֶבְרֹון אֶחָד
BN: The king of Yeru-Shala'im, one; the king of Chevron, one;
How interesting that these two get a verse together, and to themselves - the two cities where David ruled. And right at the top of the list, even though the seven hillside towns (at least three of which are known from other Bible texts to have had their own king) that would later become Yeru-Shala'im were never actually conquered at this time (Y is of course an anachronism).
CHEVRON: See the link.
12:11 MELECH YARMUT ECHAD MELECH LACHISH ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ יַרְמוּת אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ לָכִישׁ אֶחָד
BN: The king of Yarmut, one; the king of Lachish, one;
And if the significance were the number of rulers in any one of these places, rather than the total at the end of the inventory - Robert Graves would argue for two in every case, insisting on the rival Tanist as a necessary aspect of the fertility cult, and the Eyptian year-division between Osher and Set certainly offers a version of that; but very few scholars, and even Graves-enthusiasts like me, agree with him on this one; elsewhere maybe, but not here, in this context. "The King or poet represents growth, and the rival or Tanist represents drought," as he told one interviewer (click here).
I wonder if MELECH doesn't simply mean "ruler" (the Pi'el or maybe Hiphil form of LALECHET = "to go", and therefore "to lead"), in which case it could be the equivalent of Mayor, which implies Aldermen as well, or simply the local Sheikh and his Council of Elders, or even a tribal leadership group, as with the Kalweh (or Khalwā, or Khalwat, the dialects vary), the weekly council of the Druze elders, which takes place to this day in Israel and the Lebanon. But, again, it doesn't matter if it was one king or an entire regional multi-party assembly of democratic representatives: in this context, it is still "one".
YARMUT: See the link.
12:12 MELECH EGLON ECHAD MELECH GEZER ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ עֶגְלֹון אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ גֶּזֶר אֶחָד
BN: The king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one.
EGLON: See the link.
GEZER: See the link.
12:13 MELECH DEVIR ECHAD MELECH GEDER ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ דְּבִר אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ גֶּדֶר אֶחָד
BN: The king of Devir, one; the king of Geder, one;
DEVIR: See my notes to Joshua 10:3.
GEDER: Is this an error. Joshua 10 has Gezer at this point of the tale, and Gezer is already listed in the last verse. All the other towns mentioned in Joshua 10 are repeated here, none left out; but there are additions in this chapter, starting here. On the other hand, this one's name is so close to Gezer it could be a scribal error; two different people gave him the list and one looked like Gezer, the other Geder, so he included both... possible... Nor does the town get mentioned again at any time in the Tanach; the nearest is 1 Chronicles 27:28, where Ba'al-Chanan the Gederi is put in charge of the olive trees and the sycamores in the Shephelah. Ba'al-Chanan is the name of a deity, not a man, and a Gaderi is a man who makes fences for a living, and not a person from a town named Geder. Christians might want to notice this variation too, because the tale of the "Gadarene swine" in Matthew 8 is also linked to this name, and there too there is a question about the correctness of the name, Luke 8:26 and Mark 5:1 both insisting on Gerasene.
12:14 MELECH CHARMAH ECHAD MELECH ARAD ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ חָרְמָה אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ עֲרָד אֶחָד
KJ: The king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one;
BN: The king of Charmah, one; the king of Arad, one;
More previously unmentioned conquests.
CHARMAH: Appears in Numbers 14:45 and 21:3, though these may be two places: the first is described as being Amelekite, the second Kena'ani; if they are different, it is the latter that was destroyed by Yehoshu'a in this verse. It is also mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:44, but that one is described as being close to Mount Se'ir, so definitely a different one.
However, we can recognise the root that also gives CHEREM in there, so like Ha Ai = "the ruin", we can assume that no one calls their town "destruction for all time" when they are living in it, and that it is simply an epithet bestowed by its conqueror, and any town on this list could therefore be called CHARMAH.
Judges 1:17 complicates the matter still further, first by insisting that Yehudah and Shim'on were the ones who destroyed the town, only: "after the death of Yehoshu'a", and not at the time of this verse; and second by giving the town back its proper name, which was Tsefat (צפת), and this is problematic because Zefat, if you prefer that spelling, or Safed, or even Tzfat at this link, is the most gorgeous town, high up in the hills of Korazim, north of Kineret (the Sea of Galilee), nowhere near Arad, and definitely not "destroyed for all time", because it's still there now.
And then there are towns with the same epithet in the Book of Joshua itself: Joshua 15:30 has one between Chesil and Tsiklag, near the border of Edom in the deep south; Joshua 19:4 has another between Vetul (probably another variant of Beit-El and Betu-El for a baetylus) and Tsiklag, as does 1 Chronicles 4:30 - though it is entirely possible that those two are the same place, and may even be the Amelekite one. More on the scholarly debate over all of this, here. See also Judges 1:17.
ARAD: The city in today's Israel is a modern development town that was given the name because it happens to be close to where the original stood. That is now an archeological site. The link here is to the archaeology and the modern; the one in the previous paragraph is to the biblical.
12:15 MELECH LIVNAH ECHAD MELECH ADUL-AM ECHAD
ARAD: The city in today's Israel is a modern development town that was given the name because it happens to be close to where the original stood. That is now an archeological site. The link here is to the archaeology and the modern; the one in the previous paragraph is to the biblical.
12:15 MELECH LIVNAH ECHAD MELECH ADUL-AM ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ לִבְנָה אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ עֲדֻלָּם אֶחָד
BN: The king of Livnah, one; the king of Adul-Am, one;
LIVNAH: See the link.
ADUL-AM: See the link.
12:16 MELECH MAKEDAH ECHAD MELECH BEIT-EL ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ מַקֵּדָה אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ בֵּית אֵל אֶחָד
BN: The king of Makedah, one; the king of Beit-El, one;
MAKEDAH: See the link.
BEIT-EL was already included as Ha Ai; so were there two Beit-Els? In fact, given that a Beit-El is a baetyl, there were probably hundreds.
12:17 MELECH TAPU'ACH ECHAD MELECH CHEPHER ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ תַּפּוּחַ אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ חֵפֶר אֶחָד
BN: The king of Tapu'ach, one; the king of Chepher, one;
TAPU'ACH: The word means "apple", and it was probably an apple orchard that grew into a village, or maybe a central storehouse for the apple-market; and quite likely it was a common name too. There is an Ein Tapu'ach mentioned in Joshua 5:34 and again in 17:7, the former locating it in the foothills of the territory of Yehudah, but the latter including it as a kind of southern extension of the border of Menasheh, while 16:8 states that "from Tapu'ach..." (rather than Ein Tapu'ach) "...the border went westward to the Brook of Kanah and ended at the Sea. This was the inheritance of the clans of the tribe of Ephrayim." So we may have as many as five places bearing the same, or a variation of the same name.
CHEPHER: Would that be Gat Chepher, the birthplace of the prophet Yonah (Jonah)? Probably not, as that was about two miles east of what is today Nazareth, a long way from any of the Tapu'achs we have yet discovered. The only other reference to a Chepher is in 1 Kings 4:10, where we are told that one of king Shelomoh's (Solomon's) District Governors was "Ben Chesed of Arubot, who had the district of Sochoh and Chepher". Sochoh would become famous later on as the place where David killed Gol-Yat (Goliath) - 1 Samuel 17:1 - much closer to Tapu'ach too.
12:18 MELECH APHEK ECHAD MELECH LASHARON ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ אֲפֵק אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ לַשָּׁרֹון אֶחָד
BN: The king of Aphek, one; the king of Lasharon, one;
APHEK: One of the royal cities of the Beney Kena'an, it would have its place in Yisra-Eli history for the capture of the Ark of the Covenant, foolishly summoned to lead the army into battle; see 1 Samuel 4 and click here to learn more.
LASHARON: Why Lasharon? Is it a different place than Sharon, and simply never again mentioned? Certainly the Septuagint translators thought so (click here). Or is the LA a direction marker? I only ask because LA is never a geographical indicator, except when a dative is being used (LE HA ellided, "to the..."), and yet there is about to be an example of one, in verse 21, with YAKNA'AM LA KARMEL. See my note there.
Mentioning the Septuagint, this chapter is particularly interesting, and very surprising, in its rendition - click here to read the chapter in English translation. An entirely different commentary would be required, just to show the differences, let alone try to explain them! And a total, please take note, of only twenty-nine kings (Gil-Gal, which is unmentioned, presumably making up the thirty, but allowing the Alexandrian Jews to avoid the mythological connection, just as the Ezraic version did, but the other way around - as we shall see at verse 24).
12:19 MELECH MADON ECHAD MELECH CHATSOR ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ מָדֹון אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ חָצֹור אֶחָד
BN: The king of Madon, one; the king of Chatsor, one;
MADON: Is Madon a variant of Midyan (Midian)? Both are rooted in DAN, which means "judge", as is the tribe that bears the name - and as do the Dana'ans of Greek fame and the Tuatha Dé Danann (note the Geva or tumulus in the photo at the top of this link), "the People of the Goddess Danu", who founded Eireland. See my essay on The Leprachauns of Palestine for more on this "common source".
12:20 MELECH SHIMRON-MER'ON ECHAD MELECH ACHSHAPH ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ שִׁמְרֹון מְראֹון אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ אַכְשָׁף אֶחָ
BN: The king of Shimron-Mer'on, one; the king of Achshaph, one;
SHIMRON-MER'ON: The scholars cannot make up their mind what the correct name is: Shimron-Meron, or Shimronmeron, so you will find different explanations at each of the links, but from the same scholarly source! From a Yehudit perspective, the hyphenated version is the only viable pronunciation of the two, though the hyphen is probably redundant, and two separate words might be more accurate. Sam-Simurna in the Assyrian records.
ACHSHAPH: See the notes to Joshua 11:1.
12:21 MELECH TA'NACH ECHAD MELECH MEGIDO ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ תַּעְנַךְ אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ מְגִדֹּו אֶחָד
BN: The king of Ta'nach, one; the king of Megido, one;
TA'NACH: See the link.
MEGIDO: Har Megido is the hill, Megido was presumably the shrine, and it is hugely ancient, and one of the most excavated digs in modern Israel, not surprisingly because it is also the location at which the end of the world is supposed to take place - Har Megido becomes Armageddon in the English, but I leave you to find your own hyperlinks to that silliness.
12:22 MELECH KEDESH ECHAD MELECH YAKNA'AM LA KARMEL ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ קֶדֶשׁ אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ יָקְנֳעָם לַכַּרְמֶל אֶחָד
BN: The king of Kedesh, one; the king of Yakna'am of Karmel, one;
KEDESH: So many places have that name, or its variation KADESH, we cannot know if this is the one associated with Mosheh; though its location at Karm-El, which is the mountain of today's Haifa, makes it somewhat unlikely (but there were also several places named Karm-El - usually written today as Carmel; vineyards dedicated to the deity are likely to have been... as common as vineyards).
And if you still find this business of multiple names bewildering; it really shouldn't be. Religious shrines and places of worship are limited in the names they can take: so there must be a dozen synagogues at least around the Jewish world that call themselves Temple Sinai, or Christian churches dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch or St John of Patmos. So there are multiple Biblical ones named Beit-El or Karm-El or Kadesh.
Is this LA like the ones in the Psalms, meaning "to" and not "of"? There are mediaeval places in England that use a similar designation: Langton-towards-Canterbury indicating that it must be on the west because the pilgrim-route started in London, and this a verbal signpost for the pilgrims.
12:23 MELECH DOR LENAPHAT DOR ECHAD MELECH GOYIM LE GIL-GAL ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ דֹּור לְנָפַת דֹּור אֶחָד מֶלֶךְ גֹּויִם לְגִלְגָּל אֶחָד
BN: The king of Dor, on the coast of Dor, one; the king of the nations of Gil-Gal, one;
DOR: Tel Dor, the archeological dig that has been uncovering this site, is on the Mediterranean coast, just south of Haifa. Given the uncertainties about the location of Kedesh, above, the mentioning of Dor immediately after Kedesh, and their very close proximity, appears to confirm the latter.
LE NAPHAT: And three times means it can't be an error or a coincidence, but must have been a way of doing place-names at some point in history. "On the coast of Dor" is an over-simplification, but "Dor towards the coast of Dor" seems to me unwieldy in English. The point is that there is the town of Dor, which was a port, and therefore itself on the coast, and there is the surrounding coast, which is given the name Dor because of the town.
GOYIM LE GIL-GAL: meaning what exactly? But no sooner have we reached that conclusion about LA (or LE in this verse), than we are undermined by Le Gil-Gal, being confident that GOYIM is not the name of a town, but a general name for anyone not of the Beney Yisra-El. Is this then an example of LE meaning "of"? It seems to be. Why can't language be consistent (in some situations that should or might read "why cannot language be consistent?", or even "why can language not be consistent?")?
12:24 MELECH TIRTSAH ECHAD KOL MELACHIM SHELOSHIM VE ECHAD
מֶלֶךְ תִּרְצָה אֶחָד כָּל מְלָכִים שְׁלֹשִׁים וְאֶחָד
BN: The king of Tirtsah, one: the total number of kings, thirty-one.
And to think that I gave up listing and counting the kings, for the list I thought might be useful in 10:37. Because I was anticipating twelve, one for each month of the year, to confirm that all of this was cosmological mythology. And now it turns out, including Gil-Gal which is the sun of all this, the now-established centre of the Yisra-Eli universe, we have, not 12 but 30 (I will explain why 30 in just a second), not one for each month (each stellar constellation), but one for each day in any lunar month. Or 29 if you discount the solar Gil-Gal, Yehoshu'a the sun-surrogate's base (or 29, according to Septuagint, which leave out Gil-Gal altogether.
So what is going on. I would suggest that the original list ended at the end of verse 23, with Gil-Gal in its rightful position, but the Ezraic scribe, and the Alexandrian Jews who came a century later, were trying to move on beyond the mythological, to establish YHVH as the sole diety and no longer YHVH Tseva'ot, and so the moon, her three phases and thirty days, the twelve constellations, the five planets (we enountered them as kings earlier but they are strangely missing from this list), all had to be "removed", which in a text rewritten as pseudo-history becomes "conquered".
Which leaves TIRTSAH, one of the five daughters of Tselaphchad. She fought for, and won, the rights of women to inherit (in Numbers 27); but then, sadly, had that edict revoked (Numbers 36).
And how strange a coincidence that her story, which had already been told, and YHVH's decision published, found its repeal tagged on as a kind of afterthought or appendix at the very end of the Book of Numbers. The debate over the role of women, their rights of inheritance, their exemption or exclusion from worship. It had been granted previously, by Mosheh; but was now overthrown. So, here, the last of the conquered is Tirtsah - and the role of women in both the human and the divine will remain in that secondary place for the rest of Jewish history.
As to whether this was the same Tirtsah, or she took her name from the town, or the town took its name from her, or pure coincidence, I cannot say. But I can quote at length from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, even though you can read the full quote at the link, above:
TIRZA: A royal city of the Canaanites, the king of which was slain by Joshua (12:24). It superseded Shechem as capital of the Northern Kingdom (1 Kings 14:17, etc.), and itself gave place in turn to Samaria. Here reigned Jeroboam, Nadab his son, Baasha, Elah and Zimri (1 Kings 15:21, 33; 1 Kings 16:6, 8, 9, 15). Baasha was buried in Tirzah. Here Elah was assassinated while "drinking himself drunk" in the house of his steward; here therefore probably he was buried. Zimri perished in the flames of his palace, rather than fall into Omri's hands. In Tirzah Menahem matured his rebellion against Shallum (2 Kings 15:14). The place is mentioned in Songs 6:4 the King James Version, where the Shulammite is said to be "beautiful.... as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem."
SHELOSHIM VE ECHAD: So was thirty-one simply the total number that it happened to be? And was it 29,or 30, or 31? An was it lunar or solar, or the intercalation of both? Go back to my notes from Drummond at Joshua 10:7, and the explanation of the Egyptian zodiac, divided into twelve constellations, each constellation divided by the three phases of the moon into twelve decans, making a total of thirty-six. Then ask again why Tirtsah gets mentioned, and add the five kings missing from this chapter - the five kings who were captured in the cave and hanged (likewise in Joshua 10). Thirty-six kings! Giborim and Tsadikim to the last, I have no doubt (see my notes on those two terms at Joshua 10:7)! And last-named of all a capital city to accompany Yeru-Shala'im in divided Yisra-El!
And now that we have the thirty-six districts that will become the tribal amphictyony, the next chapter is free to start replacing them with tribes, and to break down each tribe into its own decan-divisions. Earth reflecting the Heavens, at every level, and even managing to include the male-female, sun-moon division. Brilliant!
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| The Vedic version of the Decans |
One last thought: archaeological evidence, of which there is now plenty, simply does not substantiate the "historical" conquest as described here. Many of the towns did not yet exist at the time of Yehoshu'a; others were destroyed, but not then. What we have is not really an account of the conquest by Yehoshu'a anyway; we have to read it as an historic mitigation of the rule at the time of the Redactor, a validation of the takeover of paganism by monotheism.
The name of Yehoshu'a - "the liberator" to use a Bolivarian equivalent - equates him with late Messianism, almost exactly as Mosheh's story does for him. William 1 of Normandy did not name himself, nor was he named by his people, as "the Conqueror"; that came only centuries later, and in fact he conquered very little of Britain, despite the fact that Norman hegemony gradually became established, over the two centuries following his arrival. Yet most English people never learned French (see Walter Scott's account of a typical English table versus a typical English farm), and never adopted French mores, and still have not rid themselves of the pre-Christian rites and practices which French Christianity sought to expunge. Exactly the same is true of Kena'an and Yehoshu'a.
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The name of Yehoshu'a - "the liberator" to use a Bolivarian equivalent - equates him with late Messianism, almost exactly as Mosheh's story does for him. William 1 of Normandy did not name himself, nor was he named by his people, as "the Conqueror"; that came only centuries later, and in fact he conquered very little of Britain, despite the fact that Norman hegemony gradually became established, over the two centuries following his arrival. Yet most English people never learned French (see Walter Scott's account of a typical English table versus a typical English farm), and never adopted French mores, and still have not rid themselves of the pre-Christian rites and practices which French Christianity sought to expunge. Exactly the same is true of Kena'an and Yehoshu'a.
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