13:1 VIYHOSHU'A ZAKEN BA BA YAMIM VA YOMER YHVH ELAV ATAH ZAKANTAH BA'TA VA YAMIM VE HA ARETS NISH'ARAH HARBEH ME'OD LERISHTAH
וִיהֹושֻׁעַ זָקֵן בָּא בַּיָּמִים וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֵלָיו אַתָּה זָקַנְתָּה בָּאתָ בַיָּמִים וְהָאָרֶץ נִשְׁאֲרָה הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד לְרִשְׁתָּהּ
BN (BibleNet traslation): Now Yehoshu'a was old, and coming to the end of his days; and YHVH said to him: You are old, and the end of your days are drawing close, and there is still a vast amount of this land remaining to be possessed.
Despite the seemingly universal list of conquests at the end of the last chapter; a recognition of the remarks made there, and previously: the "whole land" still has not been conquered. HARBEH ME'OD - not by a very long way!
ZAKEN BA YAMIM: Wonderful idiom. A ZAKEN is a wise-man - the foolish belief that people get wiser as they get older. A ZAKEN is also a beard - the foolish belief that a man tugging at the ends of his beard is deep in thought and must therefore be wise.
13:2 ZOT HA ARETS HA NISH'ARET KOL GELIYLOT HA PELISHTIM VE CHOL HA GESHURI
KJ: This is the land that yet remaineth: all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri.
BN: This is the land that still remains: the entire region of the Pelishtim, and all that of the Geshuri.
Is this perhaps the land which the Ezraites never took? Because surely the Pelishtim (Philistines) had not arrived yet - the palace of Knossos (Heraklion) was sacked, according to archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who excavated the site, somewhere between 1380–1100 BC; even if we accept the earliest date, the first refugees, who attempted to settle the Kena'ani (Canaanite) coast, cannot have done so before the time of Mosheh, and most likely not till well after the time of Yehoshu'a.
GELILOT: Is this also the root of the name Galil (Galilee)? The root is once again GAL, as in Gil-Gal and Golgot-Yah (Golgotha). If so, it will be because of the rolling hills, rather than the rolling waves. But either way, it does not mean "borders" - cf Joel 4:4 and Ezekiel 47:8 (borders would use GEVUL, as in verses 3 and 23). I will, however, point out that it is not the most common word for "region" - that would be AYZOR (אזור) - but I think it unlikely that YHVH would have been using GELILOT as a way of being extremely rude and vulgar synonymously: GALAL, because the droppings of sheep and goats tend to come in costive round balls, is also one of the words for post-digestive matter (1 Kings 14:10, for example).
GESHURI: Note that two of the many ways of describing a people are used together on this occasion: Pelishtim, which is a masculine plural, Geshuri which is an adjectival noun. The equivalent in English would be to speak of the Germans (masculine noun for people from Germany), and the Dutch (adjectival noun for people from Holland), rather than Deutschers (people from Germany) and Hollanders (people from Holland). Given that these names are fairly consistent throughout the text, we can assume that the two forms were standard, as they are today in English (the obvious exception is Scotland, where both Scots and Scottish are used, and even, though usually only when inebriated, Scotch). See also my note to SHEVET and MATEH in verse 29.
13:3 MIN HA SHIYCHOR ASHER LA PENEY MITSRAYIM VE AD GEVUL EKRON TSAPHONAH LA KENA'ANI TECHASHEV CHAMESHET SARNEY PHELISHTIM HA AZATI VE HA ASHDODI HA ESHKELONI HA GITI VE HA EKRONI VE HA AVIM
KJ: From Sihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the borders of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanite: five lords of the Philistines; the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avites:
BN: From Shiychor, which faces Mitsrayim, as far as the borders of Ekron in the north, which is regarded as Kena'ani land; also the five lords of the Pelishtim: the Azati, the Ashdodi, the Eshkeloni, the Gati and the Ekroni; also the Avim.
MIN HA SHIYCHOR: yet again the use of the definite article, suggesting perhaps that Shiychor was not a town, but some other geographical entity. And in fact it was - almost certainly this was the name used at that time for the River Nile, though the phrasing here suggests a tributary flowing into the Nile, rather than the Nile itself: most likely Wadi Arish, which does precisely that, bourning in the sea about fifty miles south-west of Azah (Gaza). Cf 1 Chronicles 13:5, Isaiah 23:3, Jeremiah 2:18.
AL PENEY MITSRAYIM: indicating that he cannot have taken Egyptian Goshen, which is much further west than this. I queried this when the claim was made in Joshua 10:41 and 11:16.
AZAH: Gaza, because we find that guttoral Ayin (ע) too difficult. Again note the use of the adjectival noun for the people.
ASHDOD: See the link.
ESHKELON: a much more logical pronunication than Ashkelon, which we use today; as Emorites is more logical than Amorites, below. Dispute among the scholars as to its etymology: some go for Eshkol, which connects it to the graefruit (אשכוליות); unfortunately the grapefruit wasn't known until the 19th century CE, and this is practically the 19th century BCE! Others go for Eshkol, and get its meaning right; an Eshkol is actually a "cluster" of grapes, and it was because the grapefruit, before they ripen, look a little bit like giant grapes, that they were called grapefruit in English, and Eshkoliyot in Ivrit. But unfortunately even this etymology doesn't work, because the flat, desert soil is not conducive to growing grapes in the Gaza Strip. Much more likely is option three, the root SHOKEL (שקל) with an Aramaic Aleph (א) - which would lead us to "migration" - and Ashkelon thus appears to have been the first permanent settlement established by the Pelishtim when they first landed on the coast of Kena'an; in which case we should probably pronounce it, as the local Arabs do, Askulan.
GAT: A Gat is a press, not for books or newspapers, but either for wine or olive oil - the latter yielding Gat Shamen, or Gethsemane in the Christian scriptures. Much further north than Ashkelon, wine is definitely a possibility, though it could easily have been both grape and olive.
EKRON: Not to be confused with Acco, which the Crusaders called Acre; the mistake is plausible, because in the Maccabbean (Hasmonean) epoch Ekron became pronounced as Accaron, and its geographical location is not that far from the foothills of Mount Karm-El (Carmel) where Acco is located. Ekron was the real reason why the tribe of Dan moved to La'ish - it occupies what would have been the dead centre of Danite tribal territory (slightly further north in fact, on the Danite side of the border, than in the illustration).
AVIM: The link is to BibleHub, but for some reason they have two, with some differences; this is the other.
13:4 MI TEYMAN KOL ERETS HA KENA'ANI U ME'ARAH ASHER LA TSIDONIM AD APHEKAH AD GEVUL HA EMORI
KJ: From the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites:
BN: From the south, all the land of the Kena'ani, and Me'arah, which belongs to the Tsidonim, as far as Aphek, and from there the borders of the Emori.
TEYMAN: At other times, TEYMAN has been understood as the YEMEN, the southernmost point of the Hejaz on the east bank of the east prong of the Red Sea; this however uses the same root, which means "south", to refer to that region of Kena'an.
ME'ARAH: See the link.
TSIDON: See the link.
APHEKAH: Another exceptional use of the dative suffix. Aphek was one of the royal cities of Kena'an (see Joshua 12:18).
Geographically, if the link to Me'arah has it correct, and with Tsidon obviously in Lebanon, this simply doesn't make any sense, because it starts "south", goes through the "land of the Kena'ani" into Lebanon, but then ends way south again, back in Aphek - imagine describing your route from Miami to New York as going via Orlando, Charleston, Baltimore and Savannah, and in that order. And the next verse finds us in Lebanon and the north again. Do we deduce then that, as with Goshen, there must have been more than one town with the same name - think Newcastle, Frankfurt, Springfield (New Jersey, Illinois, 5 in Wisconsin, 11 in Ohio!), Paris (Texas), London (Ontario)... we make the assumption that it must be the one we have heard of, but on this occasion the geography refutes us.
13:5 VE HA ARETS HA GIVLI VE CHOL HA LEVANON MIZRACH HA SHEMESH MI BA'AL GAD TACHAT HAR CHERMON AD LEVO CHAMAT
KJ: And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
BN: And the land of the Givli, and all Levanon toward the west, from Ba'al Gad below Mount Chermon as far as the mountain-pass that leads to Chamat.
GIVLI: Whih could be from GEVUL = "border", and mean "all the people living on the border"; only they didn't define tribal or national boundaries in those days as we do today. Much more likely the inhabitants of Mount Gebal, which is north of Beirut, so we are definitely in the Lebanon, as the phrase that follows also confirms.
BA'AL GAD: And then east, towards Ashur (Assyria), and the foothills of Mount Chermon. There is a side-note required for this though, because the tribe of Gad has just settled in exactly this region, and isn't that an odd coincidence! Ba'al Gad means "the god of Fortune"; for which see the link to the tribe rather than the link to the place.
CHAMAT: Of which, again, there are several that bear the name; see the link.
13:6 KOL YOSHVEY HA HAR MIN HA LEVANON AD MISREPHOT MAYIM KOL TSIDONIM ANOCHI ORISHEM MI PENEY BENEY YISRA'EL RAK HAPILEHA LE YISRA-EL BE NACHALAT KA ASHER TSIVITICH
KJ: All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.
BN: All the inhabitants of the hill country from Levanon as far as Misrephot Mayim, and all the Tsidonim, them will I drive out from before the Beney Yisra-El: only divide it by lot to the Beney Yisra-El for an inheritance, as I have commanded you.
Interesting that they wish to take the Lebanon, though the area specified in this verse is in fact the territory of Lavan, which is much further east (and almost certainly the reason why Levanon acquired its name: "the land of the white moon-god"). More interesting that Ach-Mousa did take the Lebanon, and all the lands to the east that are described in this chapter - not that he held them for very long - so again we can strongly suggest that both Mosheh and Yehoshu'a are just dialect variations of the name Ach-Mousa (all three have the same meaning), and that it was his Egyptian, not any Yisra-Eli history that was being recalled in all these legends.
MISREPHOT MAYIM: "Salt-pans"? "Lime-kilns?" "Glass-factories"? The latter is the most unlikely, but all three are offered by the scholars as explanations of the name - the problem being that MISREPHOT indicates something burning, but MAYIM is water, and those two do not usually go well together. Given its location in the region of Chermon, where these are plentiful (Banyas the most famous; click here; or Hamat Gader, though that's further south, in the Yarmouk Valley), I presume that these were hot-water springs, or possibly a geyser, either of which can be bath-temperature. See Joshua 11:8. And of course we just had exactly the same with CHAMAT.
RAK HAPILEHA: Note the variant here, where LECHALEK has normally been used, and will be again in the next verse. I wonder if the difference is between lands that have, and lands that have not yet, been conquered, LECHALEK for the actual, whatever the verbal root is here for the theoretical. And I phrase it that way deliberately, because the root is not obvious. As noted previously (Joshua 12:7) for "division" and "separation" modern Ivrit has, in additon to LECHALEK (לְחַלֵק) and its reflective LEHITCHALEK (לְהִתְחַלֵק): LEPHATSEL (לְפַצֵל), LEHAPHRID (לְהַפרִיד), LACHALOK (לַחֲלוֹק), LEPHALEG (לְפַלֵג), LEHAVDIL (לְהַבדִיל), LECHATSOT (לַחֲצוֹת) and LESHASE'AH (לְשַׁסֵעַ), but the nearest it gets to HAPILEHA is LEHAPHLOT, which means "to discriminate".
This is the end of the list of the unconquered lands, though it is also the list of lands conquered by Ach-Mousa. If it is the former, then we can that Yehoshu'a has captured a handful of towns and cities, but really not much else, and the vast majority remains to be conquered. What is in the Levanon, what is east of Chermon towards Padan Aram, and the territories of the Pelishtim from Azah northwards, will never be conquered in the epoch of the Bible.
13:7 VE ATAH CHALEK ET HA ARETS HA ZOT BE NACHALAH LE TISH'AT HA SHEVATIM VA CHETSI HA SHEVET HA MENASHEH
KJ: Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh
BN: Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance between the nine tribes, and the half-tribe of Menasheh.
13:8 IMO HA RE'U-VENI VE HA GADI LAKCHU NACHALATAM ASHER NATAN LAHEM MOSHEH BE EVER HA YARDEN MIZRACHAH KA ASHER NATAN LAHEM MOSHEH EVED YHVH...
KJ: With whom the Reubenites and the Gadites have received their inheritance, which Moses gave them, beyond Jordan eastward, even as Moses the servant of the LORD gave them.
BN: With whom the Beney Re'u-Ven and the Beney Gad have received their inheritance, which Mosheh gave them, east of the Yarden, even as Mosheh the servant of YHVH gave them...
Why the repetition of that last phrase?
13:9 ME ARO'ER ASHER AL SEPHAT NACHAL ARNON VE HA IR ASHER BETOCH HA NACHAL VE CHOL HA MISHOR MEY-DEV'A AD DIVON
KJ: From Aroer, that is upon the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the river, and all the plain of Medeba unto Dibon
BN: From Aro'er, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the town that stands in the middle of the river, and all the plain of Mey-Dev'a as far as Divon.
ARO'ER: A map of the area can be found at this link.
ARNON: And a broader map at G13 on this one.
MEY-DEV'A: Has to be Mey-Dev'a and not Meydeva. Mey = "waters", which is the easy part. Dov is a bear, which this could be, allowing it an Aramaic Aleph (א) ending, though usually that added Aleph comes at the beginnings of words; but the geographical location definitely encourages an assumption of Aramaic, and it was bear-country until the Middle Ages. However, there are also the Arabic DAV'A, used for quietude and rest and even for pining; and in Yehudit DOV'A, the final letter an Aleph but as part of the root; used in Deuteronomy 33:25, it is precisely the opposite of the Arabic DAV'A, meaning "strength". So are these "bear-infested waters", "gentle-flowing waters of tranquility", or "a powerfully-rushing weir". We cannot know except by going there, and having been there several times, my inclination is to choose the weir. See also verse 16.
DIVON: See also Numbers 21:30. Despite the similarity of sound, DIVON is not etymologically connected to Mey-Dev'a, precisely because it lacks the Aleph discussed above.
Turning south now, through western Ashur (Assyria) and down along the Golan Heights, through Mo-Av (Moab) and towards Edom. See verse 16 below.
All these are the lands that have been nominally designated to the two-and-a-half tribes. But actually they, and virtually everything that is about to follow, is just a general map of the region, presented as an aspirational national map, and not an actual map as far as the lands of the Beney Yisra-El are concerned: most of the places mentioned are precisely the "vast amount of this land remaining to be possessed" of verse 1.
13:10 VE CHOL AREY SIYCHON MELECH HA EMORI ASHER MALACH BE CHESHBON AD GEVUL BENEY AMON
KJ: And all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites, which reigned in Heshbon, unto the border of the children of Ammon;
BN: And all the cities of Siychon king of the Emori, who was king in Cheshbon, as far as the border of the Beney Amon.
SIYCHON: First mentioned in Numbers 21, when he refused to let the Beney Yisra-El under Mosheh pass through his land. See other references in the Book of Joshua: 2:10, 9:10, 12:2ff, but also Psalm 135:11-12 and 136:16-21.
EMORITES: See the link.
CHESHBON: See the link.
AMON: See the link.
13:11 VE HA GIL'AD U GEVUL HA GESHURI VE HA MA'ACHATI VE CHOL HAR CHERMON VE CHOL HA BASHAN AD SALCHAH
KJ: And Gilead, and the border of the Geshurites and Maachathites, and all mount Hermon, and all Bashan unto Salcah.
BN: And Gil'ad, and the mountain of the Geshuri and Ma'achati, and all of Mount Chermon, and all of Ha Bashan as far as Salchah.
GIL'AD: See the link.
GEVUL: Once again I think we have to look more closely at the root of GEVUL and stop insisting on always translating it as "border", which in a verse like this is meaningless. GAVAL, as with Mount Geval, above, means "mountain", probably from the same Egyptian root, Geb, the father of the gods and the overseer of the tumuli. Gev'a, Giv-Yah and Giv-On, as we have seen, are all man-made mini-mountains, tumuli for the burial of the dead, where the GAVALIM are real mountains, god-made, higher than the mere hills for which the word HAR is generally used, though some mountains, such as Chermon, are called HARIM as well. The word came to be used for "border", or more generally for "to set bound around something", because mountains are useful for doing that when you are drawing up maps. See Psalm 83:8, but more usefull Exodus 9:23, which uses both HAR and GEVUL, the latter precisely as I have explained it here.
HA BASHAN: Another place with a definite article. And towns generally don't, whereas shrines and monuments and parliaments and other specific structure inside cities do (the Temple, the Capitol, Les Tuilleries, the Vatican ...) (and yes, I know you could counter this with Den Haag, but it's practically unique, and anyway you're wrong... click here).
SALCHAH: See the link.
13:12 KOL MAMLECHUT OG BA BASHAN ASHER MALACH BE ASHTEROT U VE EDRE'I HU NISH'AR MI YETER HA REPHA'IM VA YAKEM MOSHEH VA YORISHEM
KJ: All the kingdom of Og in Bashan, which reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei, who remained of the remnant of the giants: for these did Moses smite, and cast them out.
BN: All the kingdom of Og in Ha Bashan, who reigned in Ashtarot and in Edre'i, who was the last of the remnant of the giants: for Mosheh smote them, and cast them out.
OG: See the link.
EDRE'I: See my note to Joshua 12:4.
KJ: Nevertheless the children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites, nor the Maachathites: but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day.
BN: However, the Beney Yisra-El did not expel the Geshuri, nor the Ma'achati, but the Geshuri and the Ma'achati dwell among the Beney Yisra-El until this day.
Until which day? (We have asked this many times previously).
What is being described then is a failed act of ethnic cleansing.
13:14 RAK LE SHEVET HA LEVI LO NATAN NACHALAH ISHEY YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL HU NACHALATO KA ASHER DIBER LO
KJ: Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave none inheritance; the sacrifices of the LORD God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as he said unto them.
BN: Only to the tribe of Levi did he give no inheritance; the sacrifices of YHVH the god of Yisra-El, made by fire, are their inheritance, as he said to them.
KJ: And Moses gave unto the tribe of the children of Reuben inheritance according to their families.
BN: And Mosheh gave to the tribe of the Beney Re'u-Ven according to their clans.
KJ, and other translators, add the word "inheritance" (NACHALAH), which is not in the Yehudit, though it was in verses 7 and 14, and is clearly the intention. This will recur in other verses in this chapter.
13:16 VA YEHI LAHEM HA GEVUL ME ARO'ER ASHER AL SEPHAT NACHAL ARNON VE HA IR ASHER BETOCH HA NACHAL VE CHOL HA MIYSHOR AL MEY-DEV'A
KJ: And their coast was from Aroer, that is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the river, and all the plain by Medeba;
BN: And their border went from Aro'er, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the river, and all the plain by Mey-Dev'a.
KJ: Heshbon, and all her cities that are in the plain; Dibon, and Bamothbaal, and Bethbaalmeon.
BN: Cheshbon, and all her towns in the plain: Divon, and Bamot Ba'al, and Beit Ba'al Me'on...
CHESHBON: See verse 10. I have suggested previously that Kena'an operated, like ancient Greece and mediaeval Italy, by city-states, rather than by counties (as in England) or geographically-determined states (as in the USA). Verses like this provide the evidence: Chetsron the "capital", Divon et al the sub-towns (so Texas the state, Dallas, Houston, Galveston et al the sub-towns; Yorkshire the county, Leeds, York, Sheffield et al the sub-towns). Which also helps us understand why such a small country had quite so many kings: one for each city-state, based in its capital.
DIVON: see verse 9.
BAMOT BA'AL: Bamot means "raised", and could be used for a hill or mountain or even for the upper part of a building, but it never is; like the modern Bimah, which is the reading desk in the synagogue, it is always used for a shrine or temple, though the shrine in question may be little more than a sacred tree or a totem pole. Or even a stone idol (Baetyl) dug into the soil, though that is usually described as a Beit-El, or in the case of this verse a Beit-Ba'al.
BEIT BA'AL ME'ON: The key here is Me'on, which is used in Psalm 76:3 for the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im (because the root of the root originally meant "habitation"), but in Deuteronomy 33:27 is quite specifically a place of refuge or asylum - so we can assume that Beit Ba'al Me'on was both a temple-shrine to Ba'al and a refuge-city akin to the ones that YHVH has instructed the Beney Yisra-El to establish; confirming that this was not an original Mosaic idea, but an already existant norm. Cf Ezra 2:50 and Nehemiah 7:52; several other places have Me'on in their names, but I have picked these because they confirm that the word was in use, with this meaning, at the time of the Redaction of the Tanach.
13:18 VE YAHTSAH U KEDEMOT U MEPHA'AT
KJ: And Jahazah, and Kedemoth, and Mephaath.
BN: And Yahtsah, and Kedemot, and Mepha'at...
YAHTSAH: See the link, and also Joshua 21:36.
KEDEMOT: See the link.
MEPHA'AT: See the link.
13:19 VE KIRYATAYIM VE SIVMAH VE TSERET HA SHACHAR BE HAR HA EMEK
KJ: And Kirjathaim, and Sibmah, and Zarethshahar in the mount of the valley.
BN: And Kiryatayim, and Sivmah, and Tseret Ha Shachar on Mount Deep...
KIRYATAYIM: See my previous explanation of Kiryah, at Joshua 9:17.
SIVMAH: See the link.
TSERET HA SHACHAR: "The splendour of the dawn", a twin-city, by name anyway, and presumably the same reason behind the name as Ayelet Ha Shachar, the kibbutz next door to Chatsor, which took its name from Genesis 32:25, or perhaps from Psalm 22:1.
HAR HA EMEK: I have named it Mount Deep, because I cannot figure out how a hill gets to be called a valley, or a valley a hill. Rather like CHALEK in verse 6. The root, AMOK, means "deep", whence "a valley", but there is also a definite article here: HA EMEK. This goes with ASHDOT HA PISGAH in the next verse.
13:20 U VEIT PE'OR VE ASHDOT HA PISGAH U VEIT HA YESHIMOT
KJ: And Bethpeor, and Ashdothpisgah, and Bethjeshimoth.
BN: And Beit Pe'or, and Ashdot ha Pisgah, and Beit Yeshimot...
BEIT PE'OR: See the link.
ASHDOT HA PISGAH: see my note to 12:3.
BEIT HA YESHIMOT: See the link.
13:21 VE CHOL AREY HA MIYSHOR VE CHOL MAMLECHUT SIYCHON MELECH HA EMORI ASHER MALACH BE CHESHBON ASHER HIKAH MOSHEH OTO VE ET NESIY'EY MIDYAN ET EVI VE ET REKEM VE ET TSUR VE ET CHUR VE ET REV'A NESIYCHEM SIYCHON YOSHVEY HA ARETS
KJ: And all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, which reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses smote with the princes of Midian, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, which were dukes of Sihon, dwelling in the country.
BN: And all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Siychon king of the Emori, who reigned in Cheshbon, whom Mosheh smote with the princes of Midyan, Evi, and Rekem, and Tsur, and Chur, and Rev'a, who were dukes of Siychon, living in the country.
EVI: See the link.
REKEM: And all these repetitions also leave open a question: go back to the previous mention (the links will tell you where), and Mosheh already wiped out these kings, and annihilated these towns, so why does the Joshua text say that "they still remained to be possessed"? Did they not leave behind a garrison, in the Roman manner of doing things, the castra that held the place until conquest was complete, and which then grew into a town when possession was taken? And if not, why not? There were, according to the census in the Book of Numbers, enough of them to do both the conquering and the garrisoning. Did YHVH not think of advising Mosheh to do this? How remiss of him.
TSUR: Might this be a different Tsur from the one now known as Tyre? I ask because it is a huge geographical leap from the eastern Golan Heights to southern Lebanon.
CHUR: See my notes to Exodus 17:10.
REV'A: See the link.
13:22 VE ET BIL'AM BEN BE'OR HA KOSEM HARGU VENEY YISRA-EL BA CHEREV EL CHALELEYHEM
KJ: Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them
BN (provisional): And Bil'am ben Be'or was among those whom the Beney Yisra-El either killed with a sword, or mortally wounded.
BIL'AM (BALAAM): See Numbers 22-24.
HA KOSEM: The Tanach has many different words for the various mystical and magical mysteries, Ba'alat Ov, Navi, Ro'eh, Chazon - most of them officially prohibited: see Leviticus 20:5 for example. LIKSOM is specificially the practise of divination (cf Numbers 22:7; 1 Samuel 15:23, Ezekiel 13:6 and 23, 21:26) Was Bil'am called a Kosem when we met him previously? Not explicitly, but Numbers 22:7 certainly infers it.
EL CHALELEYHEM: CHALAL, the root here, has the sense of "piercing" or "perforating", and is therefore used for wounding people (Psalm 109:22 et al). But EL, the preposition "to", or sometimes "for", and the declension of CHALELEYHEM, do not make for a logical conclusion to a sentence about killing - either they killed him, or they wounded him, and the KJ translation, like most others, including my provisional offering, has simply added some words not in the text to try to make it make sense. BUT. The same root is also used for "profanity" - Leviticus 19:8, 21:9, Malachi 2:11, Exodus 31:14 and countless other examples, and clearly this is the intention here. They killed Bil'am because he was a soothsayer and a seer, and what he uttered, regardless of whether they came out as curses or blessings, were nonetheless profanities.
BN (final translation): And for his profanities, Bil'am ben Be'or was killed with a sword by the Beney Yisra-El.
13:23 VA YEHI GEVUL BENEY RE'U-VEN HA YARDEN U GEVUL ZOT NACHALAT BENEY RE'U-VEN LE MISHPECHOTAM HE ARIM VE CHATSREYHEN
KJ: And the border of the children of Reuben was Jordan, and the border thereof. This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben after their families, the cities and the villages thereof.
BN: Now the border of the Beney Re'u-Ven was the river Yarden: that border, with its cities and villages, was the inheritance of the Beney Re'u-Ven, according to their clans.
pey break
13:24 VA YITEN MOSHEH LE MATEH GAD LIVNEY GAD LE MISHPECHOTAM
KJ: And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad according to their families.
BN: And Mosheh gave to the tribe of Gad, to the Beney Gad by their clans...
Again KJ and other translators add in the word "inheritance", which is helpful, but unnecessary; though on this occasion they also add "even", which is simply extraneous. The original Yehudit does much the same with "the tribe of Gad...to the Beney Gad", so maybe the KJ was just making an ironic comment, that is to say a caustically sarcastic statement, about the unnecessary repetitions that really, truly, did not need to be here in the first place, even.
13:25 VAYEHI LAHEM HA GEVUL YA'ZER VE CHOL AREY HA GIL'AD VA CHATSI ERETS BENEY AMON AD ARO'ER ASHER AL PENEY RABAH
KJ: And their coast was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half the land of the children of Ammon, unto Aroer that is before Rabbah;
BN: And their border was at Ya'zer, and included all the cities of Gil'ad, and half the land of the Beney Amon, as far as Aro'er which is before Rabah.
CHOL AREY GIL'AD: infers GIL'AD as a region with many cities, where before we have seen it just as a single city - asnd perhaos, from the phrasing, it was a city-state, and Ya'zer was the capital. Gil'ad today would be called the Golan Heights, though that isn't absolutely precise.
GEVUL: Again, border, not coast; unless the Sea of Galilee is included (as per the map, there is a minuscule touching of the lake at the most northerly point, exactly where the first ever kibbutz, Degania, now stands). I have unnecessarily included the word "included" in my translation, though it does seem to make the sentence make more sense, given that "all the cities" cannot be the border.
YA'ZER: See the link for the Biblical mentions, or here for a map,which also includes Rabah (spelled as Rabbah).
KJ: And from Heshbon unto Ramathmizpeh, and Betonim; and from Mahanaim unto the border of Debir;
BN: And from Cheshbon to Ramat Mitspeh, and Betonim; and from Machanayim to the border of Devir.
RAMAT MITSPEH: The link is, I am certain, in error, reckoning Ramat Mitspeh to be an alternate name for Ramat Gil'ad. Why would it be? A Mitspeh is a watchtower, generally an astronomical observatory rather than a military observation point, though Biblical references confirm that many served both purposes, as did the Migdalim, the Migdal being the word for the "tower" and Mitspeh for the "observation". Self-evidently there were dozens of both throughout the land, long before the Beney Yisra-El arrived, and still more afterwards. The most we can say about this one is that, being listed alongside Cheshbon et al, it was probably in the same general location.
BETONIM: See the link.
MACHANAYIM: Where Ya'akov divided his clan on the night before Esav was due to arrive, the same night on which he wrestled with the "man" at Penu-El (Genesis 32).
DEVIR: What border does Devir have if it is now part of Gad? City-walls? Is it a county rather than a town? But if so, based on my conjecture (see verse 31), it would surely be HA DEVIR?
13:27 U VA EMEK BEIT HARAM U VEIT NIMRAH VE SUKOT VE TSAPHON YETER MAMLECHUT SIYCHON MELECH CHESHBON HA YARDEN U GEVUL AD KETSEH YAM KINERET EVER HA YARDEN MIZRACHAH
KJ: And in the valley, Betharam, and Bethnimrah, and Succoth, and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon, Jordan and his border, even unto the edge of the sea of Chinnereth on the other side Jordan eastward.
BN: And in the valley, Beit Haram, and Beit Nimrah, and Sukot, and Tsaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Siychon king of Cheshbon, the Yarden, and his border, as far as the edge of the sea of Kineret on the eastern side of the Yarden.
BEIT HARAM: Or is it Beit Ha Ram, functioning like Rabah, above, but Ram meaning "great" for its culture and civilisation, rather than Rabah meaning "great" for the size of its population and the extent of its terrain? See the note to Hu-Ram at Joshua 10:33. Definitely Ha with a Hey (ה) and not Cha with a Chet (ח), as in Cherem, though it would be easy to mix those two up. Bethramphtha, according to Josephus (Antiquities XVIII, ii, 1), which would make either pronunciation valid, because both would simply be abbreviations.
BEIT NIMRAH: See the link.
SUKOT: A sukah is a temporary house, usually made of palm branches, used today to celebrate the harvest-festival of Sukot (Succot or Sukkot, as you prefer), but originally one of the camps in the wilderness where the Beney Yisra-El stopped en route to Sinai (Exodus 13:20). See also Genesis 33:17.
KJ: This is the inheritance of the children of Gad after their families, the cities, and their villages.
BN: This is the inheritance of the Beney Gad, by their clans, their cities, and their villages.
13:29 VA YITEN MOSHEH LA CHATSI SHEVET MENASHEH VA YEHI LA CHATSI MATEH VENEY MENASHEH LE MISHPECHOTAM
KJ: And Moses gave inheritance unto the half tribe of Manasseh: and this was the possession of the half tribe of the children of Manasseh by their families.
BN: And Mosheh gave to the half-tribe of Menasheh; and this was the possession of the half-tribe of the Beney of Menasheh by their clans.
Why does it say SHEVET first, but then MATEH? Usually the former is a tribe but the latter a clan. We have seen this variation throughout Shemot (Exodus). Is it possible that there were two language-groups among the tribes, even in Yehoshu'a's, even perhaps in Mosheh's time, and each used a different word to say the same thing? We witness this regularly in English, where there are Norman French words, used by the nobility and middle class, and Anglo-Saxon or Viking words, used by the plebeians (no, that's Latin), used by the hoi poloi (no, that's Greek), used by the peasants (Norman French "paysan" = country dwellers) and the workers (Saxon "wirken") - and all four have the same meaning, but all four convey a very different tone. Was this also true of Shevet and Mateh? We can't know.
13:30 VA YEHI GEVULAM MI MACHANAYIM KOL HA BASHAN KOL MAMLECHUT OG MELECH HA BASHAN VE CHOL CHAVOT YA'IR ASHER BA BASHAN SHISHIM IR
KJ: And their coast was from Mahanaim, all Bashan, all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, and all the towns of Jair, which are in Bashan, threescore cities:
BN: And their border was from Machanayim, all of Ha Bashan, all the kingdom of Og, king of Ha Bashan, and all the towns of Ya'ir, which are in Ha Bashan, sixty cities.
CHAVOT: The root is CHAVAH, which is both the name of the mother-goddess, Eve in English, and the verb "to exist" (the male equivalent, which gives the father-god YHVH, is HAYAH, "to be"; his the essence, hers the manifestation). So CHAVOT are not really "towns", but "places where people exist", which could be any kind of settlement from a Bedou caravanserai to a major city.
YA'IR: Some contemporary scholars make the case for the name being CHAVOT-YA'IR, but this seems to me false, given the definition of CHAVOT, and the fact that it is plural. Having said which, Deuteronomy 3:14 names Ya'ir as a son of Menasheh, and ascribes the town to him, as HA BASHAN CHAVOT YA'IR. Deuteronomy comes after Numbers, but it was in the latter (32:41) that Ya'ir was described capturing and naming the place. 1 Kings 4:13 endorses this, but 1 Chronicles 2:22 insists that Ya'ir's father was named Seguv, rather than Menasheh, and reduces the number of his cities from thirty in Kings to twenty-three here - allowing us to regard the Menasheh claim as a late Yehudan, probably Ezraic, attempt to establish tribal ancestry where none had ever existed, and thereby to discount the Numbers and Deuteronomy claims.
Is it in fact that Ya'ir, "the enlightened one", is the name of a Buddha-like figure, and this a description of his cult-shrines - in which case CHAVOT-YA'IR does indeed make sense. And who might this "enlightened one" have been, given the date of Yehoshu'a, and the date of the Redaction? Odd coincidence, but the Yehoshu'a dates match the first appearance of Zoroaster in Persia, and the Redactor's dates match the epoch in which the Medean Persians formally adopted him as their "enlightened one".
And before I leave that rather that fanciful speculation behind, may I just point out that, in the Jewish retelling of the Persian New Year myth, in which Mordechai plays Marduk, Ester plays Ishtar, the sun-idol known in Yehudit as a Chaman (cf Leviticus 26:30) plays himself in human form, and poppy-seed cakes marking the fertility of the new-born spring are described as "Haman's ears", in that tale, in Esther 2:5 to be precise, Mordechai's father is named... Ya'ir. It was the Zoroaster-worshipping kings of the Medes who provided the means for the Yehudim to leave exile in Babylon and return to Yeru-Shala'im, and re-establish the Zionist state (the phrase is accurate; see Psalm 137). Naming Mordechai's father in honour of their Buddha would make perfect sense.
However, this is not precisely how the Tanach tells it. Or is it? Judges 10:3 tells us of another "enlightened one", named Ya'ir of the Beney Gil'ad, who "had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys", and "they had thirty towns in the land of Gil'ad, which to this day are called Chavoth Ya'ir." So there are the thirty - a school of Prophets, or disciples, following their Prophetic Judge, establishing their shrines in all the towns in the region. Might Ya'ir have been the local name for Zoroaster, calling him by his sobriquet, in the way that Yesha-Yah (Isaiah) was not his name, but his sobriquet ("YHVH is my salvation") and David likewise (Yedid-Yah in full, "the beloved of the goddess")?
The donkeys are also worth noting, because Ya'ir's full name in Judges is Ya'ir ben Shime'i ben Kish; the only other Shime'i of note is one of the two Chamberlains of King David's story. Kish, on the other hand, was a very major figure in King David's story, being the father of King Sha'ul - and it was precisely while going in search of his father's donkeys, mysteriously "gone astray" on a route that just happened to pilgrimage around the major shrines, that Sha'ul encountered the Prophet Shemu-El, and was chosen as Yisra-El's first king (1 Samuel 9). All coincidental? I doubt it.
SHISHIM IR: And now we can say for certain that IR means any settled place, from a hamlet to a town, but probably not the one way it is always translated, which is that much larger entity "a city".
13:31 VA CHATSI HA GIL'AD VE ASHTAROT VE EDRE'I AREY MAMLECHUT OG BA BASHAN LI VENEY MACHIR BEN MENASHEH LA CHATSI VENEY MACHIR LE MISHPECHOTAM
KJ: And half Gilead, and Ashtaroth, and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, were pertaining unto the children of Machir the son of Manasseh, even to the one half of the children of Machir by their families.
BN: And half of Ha Gil'ad, and Ashtarot, and Edre'i, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, to the Beney Machir ben Menasheh, to half of the Beney Machir, by their families.
HA GIL'AD: And now we have a definite article attached to a town that is frequently mentioned, but always without the article. My paternal family came from the county of Kalisch in Poland, which also has a county town named Kalisch; is the definite article here making a similar distinction? In England we do it by adding the word "shire" to the name of the county, but leaving the county town alone: e.g Hereford and Herefordshire, Worcester and Worcestershire. A convoluted sentence in the original, it seems to infer that the division of Menasheh into two half-tribes was achieved by divinding Machir in twain.
EDRE'I: See my note to 12:4.
MACHIR: But this now opens up an entirely new question, which was half-raised (the pun is irresistible) when this happened with Menasheh in Numbers 32. It seemed odd then that a tribe would divide itself in half, but here it appears to be a family tradition; Machir, after all, is the eldest son of Menasheh (Numbers 26:29), and we have witnessed repeatedly the Tanism of the Beney Yisra-El, the eldest male forced to leave the tribe and find a wife whose tribe he could join (Kayin, Yisma-El, Esav...) while the youngest inherited the birthright and the parental blessing. Is that what is happening here?
KJ: These are the countries which Moses did distribute for inheritance in the plains of Moab, on the other side Jordan, by Jericho, eastward.
BN: These are the lands which Mosheh distributed as an inheritance in the plains of Mo-Av, on the far side of the Yarden, east of Yericho.
samech break
13:33 U LE SHEVET HA LEVI LO NATAN MOSHE NACHALAH YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL HU NACHALATAM KA ASHER DIBER LAHEM
KJ: But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance: the LORD God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them.
BN: But to the tribe of Levi Mosheh did not give any inheritance: YHVH the god of Yisra-El was their inheritance, as he had told them.
Effectively repeating verse 14 - and see my note there. Note also the use of the name Elohey Yisra'el, which is plural.
13:2 ZOT HA ARETS HA NISH'ARET KOL GELIYLOT HA PELISHTIM VE CHOL HA GESHURI
זֹאת הָאָרֶץ הַנִּשְׁאָרֶת כָּל גְּלִילֹות הַפְּלִשְׁתִּים וְכָל הַגְּשׁוּרִי
KJ: This is the land that yet remaineth: all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri.
BN: This is the land that still remains: the entire region of the Pelishtim, and all that of the Geshuri.
Is this perhaps the land which the Ezraites never took? Because surely the Pelishtim (Philistines) had not arrived yet - the palace of Knossos (Heraklion) was sacked, according to archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who excavated the site, somewhere between 1380–1100 BC; even if we accept the earliest date, the first refugees, who attempted to settle the Kena'ani (Canaanite) coast, cannot have done so before the time of Mosheh, and most likely not till well after the time of Yehoshu'a.
GELILOT: Is this also the root of the name Galil (Galilee)? The root is once again GAL, as in Gil-Gal and Golgot-Yah (Golgotha). If so, it will be because of the rolling hills, rather than the rolling waves. But either way, it does not mean "borders" - cf Joel 4:4 and Ezekiel 47:8 (borders would use GEVUL, as in verses 3 and 23). I will, however, point out that it is not the most common word for "region" - that would be AYZOR (אזור) - but I think it unlikely that YHVH would have been using GELILOT as a way of being extremely rude and vulgar synonymously: GALAL, because the droppings of sheep and goats tend to come in costive round balls, is also one of the words for post-digestive matter (1 Kings 14:10, for example).
GESHURI: Note that two of the many ways of describing a people are used together on this occasion: Pelishtim, which is a masculine plural, Geshuri which is an adjectival noun. The equivalent in English would be to speak of the Germans (masculine noun for people from Germany), and the Dutch (adjectival noun for people from Holland), rather than Deutschers (people from Germany) and Hollanders (people from Holland). Given that these names are fairly consistent throughout the text, we can assume that the two forms were standard, as they are today in English (the obvious exception is Scotland, where both Scots and Scottish are used, and even, though usually only when inebriated, Scotch). See also my note to SHEVET and MATEH in verse 29.
13:3 MIN HA SHIYCHOR ASHER LA PENEY MITSRAYIM VE AD GEVUL EKRON TSAPHONAH LA KENA'ANI TECHASHEV CHAMESHET SARNEY PHELISHTIM HA AZATI VE HA ASHDODI HA ESHKELONI HA GITI VE HA EKRONI VE HA AVIM
מִן הַשִּׁיחֹור אֲשֶׁר עַל פְּנֵי מִצְרַיִם וְעַד גְּבוּל עֶקְרֹון צָפֹונָה לַכְּנַעֲנִי תֵּחָשֵׁב חֲמֵשֶׁת סַרְנֵי פְלִשְׁתִּים הָעַזָּתִי וְהָאַשְׁדֹּודִי הָאֶשְׁקְלֹונִי הַגִּתִּי וְהָעֶקְרֹונִי וְהָעַוִּים
BN: From Shiychor, which faces Mitsrayim, as far as the borders of Ekron in the north, which is regarded as Kena'ani land; also the five lords of the Pelishtim: the Azati, the Ashdodi, the Eshkeloni, the Gati and the Ekroni; also the Avim.
MIN HA SHIYCHOR: yet again the use of the definite article, suggesting perhaps that Shiychor was not a town, but some other geographical entity. And in fact it was - almost certainly this was the name used at that time for the River Nile, though the phrasing here suggests a tributary flowing into the Nile, rather than the Nile itself: most likely Wadi Arish, which does precisely that, bourning in the sea about fifty miles south-west of Azah (Gaza). Cf 1 Chronicles 13:5, Isaiah 23:3, Jeremiah 2:18.
AL PENEY MITSRAYIM: indicating that he cannot have taken Egyptian Goshen, which is much further west than this. I queried this when the claim was made in Joshua 10:41 and 11:16.
AZAH: Gaza, because we find that guttoral Ayin (ע) too difficult. Again note the use of the adjectival noun for the people.
ASHDOD: See the link.
ESHKELON: a much more logical pronunication than Ashkelon, which we use today; as Emorites is more logical than Amorites, below. Dispute among the scholars as to its etymology: some go for Eshkol, which connects it to the graefruit (אשכוליות); unfortunately the grapefruit wasn't known until the 19th century CE, and this is practically the 19th century BCE! Others go for Eshkol, and get its meaning right; an Eshkol is actually a "cluster" of grapes, and it was because the grapefruit, before they ripen, look a little bit like giant grapes, that they were called grapefruit in English, and Eshkoliyot in Ivrit. But unfortunately even this etymology doesn't work, because the flat, desert soil is not conducive to growing grapes in the Gaza Strip. Much more likely is option three, the root SHOKEL (שקל) with an Aramaic Aleph (א) - which would lead us to "migration" - and Ashkelon thus appears to have been the first permanent settlement established by the Pelishtim when they first landed on the coast of Kena'an; in which case we should probably pronounce it, as the local Arabs do, Askulan.
GAT: A Gat is a press, not for books or newspapers, but either for wine or olive oil - the latter yielding Gat Shamen, or Gethsemane in the Christian scriptures. Much further north than Ashkelon, wine is definitely a possibility, though it could easily have been both grape and olive.EKRON: Not to be confused with Acco, which the Crusaders called Acre; the mistake is plausible, because in the Maccabbean (Hasmonean) epoch Ekron became pronounced as Accaron, and its geographical location is not that far from the foothills of Mount Karm-El (Carmel) where Acco is located. Ekron was the real reason why the tribe of Dan moved to La'ish - it occupies what would have been the dead centre of Danite tribal territory (slightly further north in fact, on the Danite side of the border, than in the illustration).
AVIM: The link is to BibleHub, but for some reason they have two, with some differences; this is the other.
13:4 MI TEYMAN KOL ERETS HA KENA'ANI U ME'ARAH ASHER LA TSIDONIM AD APHEKAH AD GEVUL HA EMORI
מִתֵּימָן כָּל אֶרֶץ הַכְּנַעֲנִי וּמְעָרָה אֲשֶׁר לַצִּידֹנִים עַד אֲפֵקָה עַד גְּבוּל הָאֱמֹרִי
KJ: From the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites:
BN: From the south, all the land of the Kena'ani, and Me'arah, which belongs to the Tsidonim, as far as Aphek, and from there the borders of the Emori.
TEYMAN: At other times, TEYMAN has been understood as the YEMEN, the southernmost point of the Hejaz on the east bank of the east prong of the Red Sea; this however uses the same root, which means "south", to refer to that region of Kena'an.
ME'ARAH: See the link.
TSIDON: See the link.
APHEKAH: Another exceptional use of the dative suffix. Aphek was one of the royal cities of Kena'an (see Joshua 12:18).
Geographically, if the link to Me'arah has it correct, and with Tsidon obviously in Lebanon, this simply doesn't make any sense, because it starts "south", goes through the "land of the Kena'ani" into Lebanon, but then ends way south again, back in Aphek - imagine describing your route from Miami to New York as going via Orlando, Charleston, Baltimore and Savannah, and in that order. And the next verse finds us in Lebanon and the north again. Do we deduce then that, as with Goshen, there must have been more than one town with the same name - think Newcastle, Frankfurt, Springfield (New Jersey, Illinois, 5 in Wisconsin, 11 in Ohio!), Paris (Texas), London (Ontario)... we make the assumption that it must be the one we have heard of, but on this occasion the geography refutes us.
13:5 VE HA ARETS HA GIVLI VE CHOL HA LEVANON MIZRACH HA SHEMESH MI BA'AL GAD TACHAT HAR CHERMON AD LEVO CHAMAT
וְהָאָרֶץ הַגִּבְלִי וְכָל הַלְּבָנֹון מִזְרַח הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ מִבַּעַל גָּד תַּחַת הַר חֶרְמֹון עַד לְבֹוא חֲמָת
KJ: And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
BN: And the land of the Givli, and all Levanon toward the west, from Ba'al Gad below Mount Chermon as far as the mountain-pass that leads to Chamat.
GIVLI: Whih could be from GEVUL = "border", and mean "all the people living on the border"; only they didn't define tribal or national boundaries in those days as we do today. Much more likely the inhabitants of Mount Gebal, which is north of Beirut, so we are definitely in the Lebanon, as the phrase that follows also confirms.
BA'AL GAD: And then east, towards Ashur (Assyria), and the foothills of Mount Chermon. There is a side-note required for this though, because the tribe of Gad has just settled in exactly this region, and isn't that an odd coincidence! Ba'al Gad means "the god of Fortune"; for which see the link to the tribe rather than the link to the place.
CHAMAT: Of which, again, there are several that bear the name; see the link.
13:6 KOL YOSHVEY HA HAR MIN HA LEVANON AD MISREPHOT MAYIM KOL TSIDONIM ANOCHI ORISHEM MI PENEY BENEY YISRA'EL RAK HAPILEHA LE YISRA-EL BE NACHALAT KA ASHER TSIVITICH
כָּל יֹשְׁבֵי הָהָר מִן הַלְּבָנֹון עַד מִשְׂרְפֹת מַיִם כָּל צִידֹנִים אָנֹכִי אֹורִישֵׁם מִפְּנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל רַק הַפִּלֶהָ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל בְּנַחֲלָה כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ
BN: All the inhabitants of the hill country from Levanon as far as Misrephot Mayim, and all the Tsidonim, them will I drive out from before the Beney Yisra-El: only divide it by lot to the Beney Yisra-El for an inheritance, as I have commanded you.
Interesting that they wish to take the Lebanon, though the area specified in this verse is in fact the territory of Lavan, which is much further east (and almost certainly the reason why Levanon acquired its name: "the land of the white moon-god"). More interesting that Ach-Mousa did take the Lebanon, and all the lands to the east that are described in this chapter - not that he held them for very long - so again we can strongly suggest that both Mosheh and Yehoshu'a are just dialect variations of the name Ach-Mousa (all three have the same meaning), and that it was his Egyptian, not any Yisra-Eli history that was being recalled in all these legends.
MISREPHOT MAYIM: "Salt-pans"? "Lime-kilns?" "Glass-factories"? The latter is the most unlikely, but all three are offered by the scholars as explanations of the name - the problem being that MISREPHOT indicates something burning, but MAYIM is water, and those two do not usually go well together. Given its location in the region of Chermon, where these are plentiful (Banyas the most famous; click here; or Hamat Gader, though that's further south, in the Yarmouk Valley), I presume that these were hot-water springs, or possibly a geyser, either of which can be bath-temperature. See Joshua 11:8. And of course we just had exactly the same with CHAMAT.
RAK HAPILEHA: Note the variant here, where LECHALEK has normally been used, and will be again in the next verse. I wonder if the difference is between lands that have, and lands that have not yet, been conquered, LECHALEK for the actual, whatever the verbal root is here for the theoretical. And I phrase it that way deliberately, because the root is not obvious. As noted previously (Joshua 12:7) for "division" and "separation" modern Ivrit has, in additon to LECHALEK (לְחַלֵק) and its reflective LEHITCHALEK (לְהִתְחַלֵק): LEPHATSEL (לְפַצֵל), LEHAPHRID (לְהַפרִיד), LACHALOK (לַחֲלוֹק), LEPHALEG (לְפַלֵג), LEHAVDIL (לְהַבדִיל), LECHATSOT (לַחֲצוֹת) and LESHASE'AH (לְשַׁסֵעַ), but the nearest it gets to HAPILEHA is LEHAPHLOT, which means "to discriminate".
This is the end of the list of the unconquered lands, though it is also the list of lands conquered by Ach-Mousa. If it is the former, then we can that Yehoshu'a has captured a handful of towns and cities, but really not much else, and the vast majority remains to be conquered. What is in the Levanon, what is east of Chermon towards Padan Aram, and the territories of the Pelishtim from Azah northwards, will never be conquered in the epoch of the Bible.
13:7 VE ATAH CHALEK ET HA ARETS HA ZOT BE NACHALAH LE TISH'AT HA SHEVATIM VA CHETSI HA SHEVET HA MENASHEH
וְעַתָּה חַלֵּק אֶת הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת בְּנַחֲלָה לְתִשְׁעַת הַשְּׁבָטִים וַחֲצִי הַשֵּׁבֶט הַמְנַשֶּׁה
BN: Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance between the nine tribes, and the half-tribe of Menasheh.
The point being that Re'u-Ven, Gad, and the other half of Menasheh had their inheritance appointed by Mosheh, some while ago; as per the next verse.
13:8 IMO HA RE'U-VENI VE HA GADI LAKCHU NACHALATAM ASHER NATAN LAHEM MOSHEH BE EVER HA YARDEN MIZRACHAH KA ASHER NATAN LAHEM MOSHEH EVED YHVH...
עִמֹּו הָראוּבֵנִי וְהַגָּדִי לָקְחוּ נַחֲלָתָם אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לָהֶם מֹשֶׁה בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן מִזְרָחָה כַּאֲשֶׁר נָתַן לָהֶם מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד יְהוָה
BN: With whom the Beney Re'u-Ven and the Beney Gad have received their inheritance, which Mosheh gave them, east of the Yarden, even as Mosheh the servant of YHVH gave them...
Why the repetition of that last phrase?
13:9 ME ARO'ER ASHER AL SEPHAT NACHAL ARNON VE HA IR ASHER BETOCH HA NACHAL VE CHOL HA MISHOR MEY-DEV'A AD DIVON
מֵעֲרֹועֵר אֲשֶׁר עַל שְׂפַת נַחַל אַרְנֹון וְהָעִיר אֲשֶׁר בְּתֹוךְ הַנַּחַל וְכָל הַמִּישֹׁר מֵידְבָא עַד דִּיבֹון
BN: From Aro'er, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the town that stands in the middle of the river, and all the plain of Mey-Dev'a as far as Divon.
ARO'ER: A map of the area can be found at this link.
ARNON: And a broader map at G13 on this one.
MEY-DEV'A: Has to be Mey-Dev'a and not Meydeva. Mey = "waters", which is the easy part. Dov is a bear, which this could be, allowing it an Aramaic Aleph (א) ending, though usually that added Aleph comes at the beginnings of words; but the geographical location definitely encourages an assumption of Aramaic, and it was bear-country until the Middle Ages. However, there are also the Arabic DAV'A, used for quietude and rest and even for pining; and in Yehudit DOV'A, the final letter an Aleph but as part of the root; used in Deuteronomy 33:25, it is precisely the opposite of the Arabic DAV'A, meaning "strength". So are these "bear-infested waters", "gentle-flowing waters of tranquility", or "a powerfully-rushing weir". We cannot know except by going there, and having been there several times, my inclination is to choose the weir. See also verse 16.
DIVON: See also Numbers 21:30. Despite the similarity of sound, DIVON is not etymologically connected to Mey-Dev'a, precisely because it lacks the Aleph discussed above.
Turning south now, through western Ashur (Assyria) and down along the Golan Heights, through Mo-Av (Moab) and towards Edom. See verse 16 below.
All these are the lands that have been nominally designated to the two-and-a-half tribes. But actually they, and virtually everything that is about to follow, is just a general map of the region, presented as an aspirational national map, and not an actual map as far as the lands of the Beney Yisra-El are concerned: most of the places mentioned are precisely the "vast amount of this land remaining to be possessed" of verse 1.
13:10 VE CHOL AREY SIYCHON MELECH HA EMORI ASHER MALACH BE CHESHBON AD GEVUL BENEY AMON
וְכֹל עָרֵי סִיחֹון מֶלֶךְ הָאֱמֹרִי אֲשֶׁר מָלַךְ בְּחֶשְׁבֹּון עַד גְּבוּל בְּנֵי עַמֹּון
BN: And all the cities of Siychon king of the Emori, who was king in Cheshbon, as far as the border of the Beney Amon.
SIYCHON: First mentioned in Numbers 21, when he refused to let the Beney Yisra-El under Mosheh pass through his land. See other references in the Book of Joshua: 2:10, 9:10, 12:2ff, but also Psalm 135:11-12 and 136:16-21.
EMORITES: See the link.
CHESHBON: See the link.
AMON: See the link.
13:11 VE HA GIL'AD U GEVUL HA GESHURI VE HA MA'ACHATI VE CHOL HAR CHERMON VE CHOL HA BASHAN AD SALCHAH
וְהַגִּלְעָד וּגְבוּל הַגְּשׁוּרִי וְהַמַּעֲכָתִי וְכֹל הַר חֶרְמֹון וְכָל הַבָּשָׁן עַד סַלְכָה
BN: And Gil'ad, and the mountain of the Geshuri and Ma'achati, and all of Mount Chermon, and all of Ha Bashan as far as Salchah.
GIL'AD: See the link.
GEVUL: Once again I think we have to look more closely at the root of GEVUL and stop insisting on always translating it as "border", which in a verse like this is meaningless. GAVAL, as with Mount Geval, above, means "mountain", probably from the same Egyptian root, Geb, the father of the gods and the overseer of the tumuli. Gev'a, Giv-Yah and Giv-On, as we have seen, are all man-made mini-mountains, tumuli for the burial of the dead, where the GAVALIM are real mountains, god-made, higher than the mere hills for which the word HAR is generally used, though some mountains, such as Chermon, are called HARIM as well. The word came to be used for "border", or more generally for "to set bound around something", because mountains are useful for doing that when you are drawing up maps. See Psalm 83:8, but more usefull Exodus 9:23, which uses both HAR and GEVUL, the latter precisely as I have explained it here.
HA BASHAN: Another place with a definite article. And towns generally don't, whereas shrines and monuments and parliaments and other specific structure inside cities do (the Temple, the Capitol, Les Tuilleries, the Vatican ...) (and yes, I know you could counter this with Den Haag, but it's practically unique, and anyway you're wrong... click here).
SALCHAH: See the link.
13:12 KOL MAMLECHUT OG BA BASHAN ASHER MALACH BE ASHTEROT U VE EDRE'I HU NISH'AR MI YETER HA REPHA'IM VA YAKEM MOSHEH VA YORISHEM
כָּל מַמְלְכוּת עֹוג בַּבָּשָׁן אֲשֶׁר מָלַךְ בְּעַשְׁתָּרֹות וּבְאֶדְרֶעִי הוּא נִשְׁאַר מִיֶּתֶר הָרְפָאִים וַיַּכֵּם מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּרִשֵׁם
BN: All the kingdom of Og in Ha Bashan, who reigned in Ashtarot and in Edre'i, who was the last of the remnant of the giants: for Mosheh smote them, and cast them out.
OG: See the link.
EDRE'I: See my note to Joshua 12:4.
REPHA'IM: See the link. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering if we are misunderstanding this. Giants? The Greeks believed that there was an intermediate stage between the gods of Creation and those who ruled from Mount Olympus, and between the gods and humans as well; they called them Titans - is this also the intention of Repha'im? Or is it simply a way of describing the "aboriginal" peoples of Kena'an.
YORISHEM: The last because of genocide, or the last because of expulsion?
13:13 VE LO HORIYSHU BENEY YISRA-EL ET HA GESHURI VE ET HA MA'ACHATI VA YESHEV GESHUR U MA'ACHAT BE KEREV YISRA-EL AD HA YOM HA ZEH
YORISHEM: The last because of genocide, or the last because of expulsion?
13:13 VE LO HORIYSHU BENEY YISRA-EL ET HA GESHURI VE ET HA MA'ACHATI VA YESHEV GESHUR U MA'ACHAT BE KEREV YISRA-EL AD HA YOM HA ZEH
וְלֹא הֹורִישׁוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת הַגְּשׁוּרִי וְאֶת הַמַּעֲכָתִי וַיֵּשֶׁב גְּשׁוּר וּמַעֲכָת בְּקֶרֶב יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד הַיֹּום הַזֶּה
KJ: Nevertheless the children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites, nor the Maachathites: but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day.
BN: However, the Beney Yisra-El did not expel the Geshuri, nor the Ma'achati, but the Geshuri and the Ma'achati dwell among the Beney Yisra-El until this day.
Until which day? (We have asked this many times previously).
What is being described then is a failed act of ethnic cleansing.
13:14 RAK LE SHEVET HA LEVI LO NATAN NACHALAH ISHEY YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL HU NACHALATO KA ASHER DIBER LO
רַק לְשֵׁבֶט הַלֵּוִי לֹא נָתַן נַחֲלָה אִשֵּׁי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הוּא נַחֲלָתֹו כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לֹו
KJ: Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave none inheritance; the sacrifices of the LORD God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as he said unto them.
BN: Only to the tribe of Levi did he give no inheritance; the sacrifices of YHVH the god of Yisra-El, made by fire, are their inheritance, as he said to them.
A wonderfully clever piece of manipulation by language is this: the poor Levites, deprived of any land inheritance - except for the best suburbs, immediately outside the walls of the cities, but even these are only so that the blemished among them, the ones who can't serve as the aristocracy, and run absolutely every facet of the country, and get paid handsomely through tithes, and fed by getting the best portions of every sacrifice, those poor, blemished Levites will at least have a market garden where they can idle away their time doing something worthwhile in the breaks between studying and studying.
samech break
13:15 VA YITEN MOSHEH LE MATEH VENEY RE'U-VEN LE MISHPECHOTAM
samech break
13:15 VA YITEN MOSHEH LE MATEH VENEY RE'U-VEN LE MISHPECHOTAM
וַיִּתֵּן מֹשֶׁה לְמַטֵּה בְנֵי רְאוּבֵן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם
BN: And Mosheh gave to the tribe of the Beney Re'u-Ven according to their clans.
KJ, and other translators, add the word "inheritance" (NACHALAH), which is not in the Yehudit, though it was in verses 7 and 14, and is clearly the intention. This will recur in other verses in this chapter.
13:16 VA YEHI LAHEM HA GEVUL ME ARO'ER ASHER AL SEPHAT NACHAL ARNON VE HA IR ASHER BETOCH HA NACHAL VE CHOL HA MIYSHOR AL MEY-DEV'A
וַיְהִי לָהֶם הַגְּבוּל מֵעֲרֹועֵר אֲשֶׁר עַל שְׂפַת נַחַל אַרְנֹון וְהָעִיר אֲשֶׁר בְּתֹוךְ הַנַּחַל וְכָל הַמִּישֹׁר עַל מֵידְבָא
BN: And their border went from Aro'er, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the river, and all the plain by Mey-Dev'a.
HA IR...NACHAL: Like Notre-Dame and Westminster Abbey and St Michael's Mount and Gleistonbury/Avalon, or like Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs? The former were all sacred shrines, erected on an island in mid-river (yes, Westminster Abbey), or just off-shore (a separation of the sacred from the profane); the latter fits the same geographical description, but is a merchant centre (the imposition of the profane upon the sacred).
MEY-DEV'A: see note to verse 9.
13:17 CHESHBON VE CHOL AREYHA ASHER BA MIYSHOR DIVON U VAMOT BA'AL U VEIT BA'AL ME'ON
MEY-DEV'A: see note to verse 9.
13:17 CHESHBON VE CHOL AREYHA ASHER BA MIYSHOR DIVON U VAMOT BA'AL U VEIT BA'AL ME'ON
חֶשְׁבֹּון וְכָל עָרֶיהָ אֲשֶׁר בַּמִּישֹׁר דִּיבֹון וּבָמֹות בַּעַל וּבֵית בַּעַל מְעֹון
BN: Cheshbon, and all her towns in the plain: Divon, and Bamot Ba'al, and Beit Ba'al Me'on...
CHESHBON: See verse 10. I have suggested previously that Kena'an operated, like ancient Greece and mediaeval Italy, by city-states, rather than by counties (as in England) or geographically-determined states (as in the USA). Verses like this provide the evidence: Chetsron the "capital", Divon et al the sub-towns (so Texas the state, Dallas, Houston, Galveston et al the sub-towns; Yorkshire the county, Leeds, York, Sheffield et al the sub-towns). Which also helps us understand why such a small country had quite so many kings: one for each city-state, based in its capital.
DIVON: see verse 9.
BAMOT BA'AL: Bamot means "raised", and could be used for a hill or mountain or even for the upper part of a building, but it never is; like the modern Bimah, which is the reading desk in the synagogue, it is always used for a shrine or temple, though the shrine in question may be little more than a sacred tree or a totem pole. Or even a stone idol (Baetyl) dug into the soil, though that is usually described as a Beit-El, or in the case of this verse a Beit-Ba'al.
BEIT BA'AL ME'ON: The key here is Me'on, which is used in Psalm 76:3 for the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im (because the root of the root originally meant "habitation"), but in Deuteronomy 33:27 is quite specifically a place of refuge or asylum - so we can assume that Beit Ba'al Me'on was both a temple-shrine to Ba'al and a refuge-city akin to the ones that YHVH has instructed the Beney Yisra-El to establish; confirming that this was not an original Mosaic idea, but an already existant norm. Cf Ezra 2:50 and Nehemiah 7:52; several other places have Me'on in their names, but I have picked these because they confirm that the word was in use, with this meaning, at the time of the Redaction of the Tanach.
13:18 VE YAHTSAH U KEDEMOT U MEPHA'AT
וְיַהְצָה וּקְדֵמֹת וּמֵפָעַת
KJ: And Jahazah, and Kedemoth, and Mephaath.
BN: And Yahtsah, and Kedemot, and Mepha'at...
YAHTSAH: See the link, and also Joshua 21:36.
KEDEMOT: See the link.
MEPHA'AT: See the link.
13:19 VE KIRYATAYIM VE SIVMAH VE TSERET HA SHACHAR BE HAR HA EMEK
וְקִרְיָתַיִם וְשִׂבְמָה וְצֶרֶת הַשַּׁחַר בְּהַר הָעֵמֶק
BN: And Kiryatayim, and Sivmah, and Tseret Ha Shachar on Mount Deep...
KIRYATAYIM: See my previous explanation of Kiryah, at Joshua 9:17.
SIVMAH: See the link.
TSERET HA SHACHAR: "The splendour of the dawn", a twin-city, by name anyway, and presumably the same reason behind the name as Ayelet Ha Shachar, the kibbutz next door to Chatsor, which took its name from Genesis 32:25, or perhaps from Psalm 22:1.
HAR HA EMEK: I have named it Mount Deep, because I cannot figure out how a hill gets to be called a valley, or a valley a hill. Rather like CHALEK in verse 6. The root, AMOK, means "deep", whence "a valley", but there is also a definite article here: HA EMEK. This goes with ASHDOT HA PISGAH in the next verse.
13:20 U VEIT PE'OR VE ASHDOT HA PISGAH U VEIT HA YESHIMOT
וּבֵית פְּעֹור וְאַשְׁדֹּות הַפִּסְגָּה וּבֵית הַיְשִׁמֹות
KJ: And Bethpeor, and Ashdothpisgah, and Bethjeshimoth.
BN: And Beit Pe'or, and Ashdot ha Pisgah, and Beit Yeshimot...
BEIT PE'OR: See the link.
ASHDOT HA PISGAH: see my note to 12:3.
BEIT HA YESHIMOT: See the link.
13:21 VE CHOL AREY HA MIYSHOR VE CHOL MAMLECHUT SIYCHON MELECH HA EMORI ASHER MALACH BE CHESHBON ASHER HIKAH MOSHEH OTO VE ET NESIY'EY MIDYAN ET EVI VE ET REKEM VE ET TSUR VE ET CHUR VE ET REV'A NESIYCHEM SIYCHON YOSHVEY HA ARETS
וְכֹל עָרֵי הַמִּישֹׁר וְכָל מַמְלְכוּת סִיחֹון מֶלֶךְ הָאֱמֹרִי אֲשֶׁר מָלַךְ בְּחֶשְׁבֹּון אֲשֶׁר הִכָּה מֹשֶׁה אֹתֹו וְאֶת נְשִׂיאֵי מִדְיָן אֶת אֱוִי וְאֶת רֶקֶם וְאֶת צוּר וְאֶת חוּר וְאֶת רֶבַע נְסִיכֵי סִיחֹון יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ
BN: And all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Siychon king of the Emori, who reigned in Cheshbon, whom Mosheh smote with the princes of Midyan, Evi, and Rekem, and Tsur, and Chur, and Rev'a, who were dukes of Siychon, living in the country.
Much repetition! Almost every one of these places has already been listed part of Yisra-Eli history, during the long march through Midyan, around Edom, and across Mo-Av, under Mosheh.
EVI: See the link.
REKEM: And all these repetitions also leave open a question: go back to the previous mention (the links will tell you where), and Mosheh already wiped out these kings, and annihilated these towns, so why does the Joshua text say that "they still remained to be possessed"? Did they not leave behind a garrison, in the Roman manner of doing things, the castra that held the place until conquest was complete, and which then grew into a town when possession was taken? And if not, why not? There were, according to the census in the Book of Numbers, enough of them to do both the conquering and the garrisoning. Did YHVH not think of advising Mosheh to do this? How remiss of him.
TSUR: Might this be a different Tsur from the one now known as Tyre? I ask because it is a huge geographical leap from the eastern Golan Heights to southern Lebanon.
CHUR: See my notes to Exodus 17:10.
REV'A: See the link.
13:22 VE ET BIL'AM BEN BE'OR HA KOSEM HARGU VENEY YISRA-EL BA CHEREV EL CHALELEYHEM
וְאֶת בִּלְעָם בֶּן בְּעֹור הַקֹּוסֵם הָרְגוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּחֶרֶב אֶל חַלְלֵיהֶם
BN (provisional): And Bil'am ben Be'or was among those whom the Beney Yisra-El either killed with a sword, or mortally wounded.
BIL'AM (BALAAM): See Numbers 22-24.
HA KOSEM: The Tanach has many different words for the various mystical and magical mysteries, Ba'alat Ov, Navi, Ro'eh, Chazon - most of them officially prohibited: see Leviticus 20:5 for example. LIKSOM is specificially the practise of divination (cf Numbers 22:7; 1 Samuel 15:23, Ezekiel 13:6 and 23, 21:26) Was Bil'am called a Kosem when we met him previously? Not explicitly, but Numbers 22:7 certainly infers it.
EL CHALELEYHEM: CHALAL, the root here, has the sense of "piercing" or "perforating", and is therefore used for wounding people (Psalm 109:22 et al). But EL, the preposition "to", or sometimes "for", and the declension of CHALELEYHEM, do not make for a logical conclusion to a sentence about killing - either they killed him, or they wounded him, and the KJ translation, like most others, including my provisional offering, has simply added some words not in the text to try to make it make sense. BUT. The same root is also used for "profanity" - Leviticus 19:8, 21:9, Malachi 2:11, Exodus 31:14 and countless other examples, and clearly this is the intention here. They killed Bil'am because he was a soothsayer and a seer, and what he uttered, regardless of whether they came out as curses or blessings, were nonetheless profanities.
BN (final translation): And for his profanities, Bil'am ben Be'or was killed with a sword by the Beney Yisra-El.
13:23 VA YEHI GEVUL BENEY RE'U-VEN HA YARDEN U GEVUL ZOT NACHALAT BENEY RE'U-VEN LE MISHPECHOTAM HE ARIM VE CHATSREYHEN
וַיְהִי גְּבוּל בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן הַיַּרְדֵּן וּגְבוּל זֹאת נַחֲלַת בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם הֶעָרִים וְחַצְרֵיהֶן
BN: Now the border of the Beney Re'u-Ven was the river Yarden: that border, with its cities and villages, was the inheritance of the Beney Re'u-Ven, according to their clans.
pey break
13:24 VA YITEN MOSHEH LE MATEH GAD LIVNEY GAD LE MISHPECHOTAM
וַיִּתֵּן מֹשֶׁה לְמַטֵּה גָד לִבְנֵי גָד לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם
KJ: And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad according to their families.
BN: And Mosheh gave to the tribe of Gad, to the Beney Gad by their clans...
Again KJ and other translators add in the word "inheritance", which is helpful, but unnecessary; though on this occasion they also add "even", which is simply extraneous. The original Yehudit does much the same with "the tribe of Gad...to the Beney Gad", so maybe the KJ was just making an ironic comment, that is to say a caustically sarcastic statement, about the unnecessary repetitions that really, truly, did not need to be here in the first place, even.
13:25 VAYEHI LAHEM HA GEVUL YA'ZER VE CHOL AREY HA GIL'AD VA CHATSI ERETS BENEY AMON AD ARO'ER ASHER AL PENEY RABAH
וַיְהִי לָהֶם הַגְּבוּל יַעְזֵר וְכָל עָרֵי הַגִּלְעָד וַחֲצִי אֶרֶץ בְּנֵי עַמֹּון עַד עֲרֹועֵר אֲשֶׁר עַל פְּנֵי רַבָּה
KJ: And their coast was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half the land of the children of Ammon, unto Aroer that is before Rabbah;
BN: And their border was at Ya'zer, and included all the cities of Gil'ad, and half the land of the Beney Amon, as far as Aro'er which is before Rabah.
CHOL AREY GIL'AD: infers GIL'AD as a region with many cities, where before we have seen it just as a single city - asnd perhaos, from the phrasing, it was a city-state, and Ya'zer was the capital. Gil'ad today would be called the Golan Heights, though that isn't absolutely precise.
YA'ZER: See the link for the Biblical mentions, or here for a map,which also includes Rabah (spelled as Rabbah).
RABAH (different link, different information) in Yehudit means "much", as in TODAH RABAH, "thank you very much" (see also the use of HARBEH in verse 1), or the use of the word as "many" in Psalm 110:6; but really this is because RABAH means "great", and the word was used for the "capital city" (the head-city of a city-state) by many nations, though usually, like Alexander the Great or Catherinethe Great, it was the sobriquet to an actual name. The Rabah in question here was the Amonite capital - see 2 Samuel 11:1 and 12:27, 1 Chronicles 20:1, Jeremiah 49:3 et al - and its full name was RABAT BENEY AMON: "the great city of the Beney Amon". Today, in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the capital is named Amman for the same reason - click here.
13:26 U ME CHESHBON AD RAMAT HA MITSPEH U VETONIM U MI MACHANAYIM AD GEVUL LIDVIR
13:26 U ME CHESHBON AD RAMAT HA MITSPEH U VETONIM U MI MACHANAYIM AD GEVUL LIDVIR
וּמֵחֶשְׁבֹּון עַד רָמַת הַמִּצְפֶּה וּבְטֹנִים וּמִמַּחֲנַיִם עַד גְּבוּל לִדְבִר
KJ: And from Heshbon unto Ramathmizpeh, and Betonim; and from Mahanaim unto the border of Debir;
BN: And from Cheshbon to Ramat Mitspeh, and Betonim; and from Machanayim to the border of Devir.
RAMAT MITSPEH: The link is, I am certain, in error, reckoning Ramat Mitspeh to be an alternate name for Ramat Gil'ad. Why would it be? A Mitspeh is a watchtower, generally an astronomical observatory rather than a military observation point, though Biblical references confirm that many served both purposes, as did the Migdalim, the Migdal being the word for the "tower" and Mitspeh for the "observation". Self-evidently there were dozens of both throughout the land, long before the Beney Yisra-El arrived, and still more afterwards. The most we can say about this one is that, being listed alongside Cheshbon et al, it was probably in the same general location.
BETONIM: See the link.
MACHANAYIM: Where Ya'akov divided his clan on the night before Esav was due to arrive, the same night on which he wrestled with the "man" at Penu-El (Genesis 32).
DEVIR: What border does Devir have if it is now part of Gad? City-walls? Is it a county rather than a town? But if so, based on my conjecture (see verse 31), it would surely be HA DEVIR?
13:27 U VA EMEK BEIT HARAM U VEIT NIMRAH VE SUKOT VE TSAPHON YETER MAMLECHUT SIYCHON MELECH CHESHBON HA YARDEN U GEVUL AD KETSEH YAM KINERET EVER HA YARDEN MIZRACHAH
וּבָעֵמֶק בֵּית הָרָם וּבֵית נִמְרָה וְסֻכֹּות וְצָפֹון יֶתֶר מַמְלְכוּת סִיחֹון מֶלֶךְ חֶשְׁבֹּון הַיַּרְדֵּן וּגְבֻל עַד קְצֵה יָם כִּנֶּרֶת עֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן מִזְרָחָה
BN: And in the valley, Beit Haram, and Beit Nimrah, and Sukot, and Tsaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Siychon king of Cheshbon, the Yarden, and his border, as far as the edge of the sea of Kineret on the eastern side of the Yarden.
BEIT HARAM: Or is it Beit Ha Ram, functioning like Rabah, above, but Ram meaning "great" for its culture and civilisation, rather than Rabah meaning "great" for the size of its population and the extent of its terrain? See the note to Hu-Ram at Joshua 10:33. Definitely Ha with a Hey (ה) and not Cha with a Chet (ח), as in Cherem, though it would be easy to mix those two up. Bethramphtha, according to Josephus (Antiquities XVIII, ii, 1), which would make either pronunciation valid, because both would simply be abbreviations.
BEIT NIMRAH: See the link.
SUKOT: A sukah is a temporary house, usually made of palm branches, used today to celebrate the harvest-festival of Sukot (Succot or Sukkot, as you prefer), but originally one of the camps in the wilderness where the Beney Yisra-El stopped en route to Sinai (Exodus 13:20). See also Genesis 33:17.
TSAPHON: Is that the name of a place, or is the map-maker directing us south - see my note to Joshua 11:2.
KINERET: On this occasion it is written as Kineret, the way we know it today. Again, look at my note to Joshua 11:2.
13:28 ZOT NACHALAT BENEY GAD LE MISHPECHOTAM HE ARIM VE CHATSEREYHEM
KINERET: On this occasion it is written as Kineret, the way we know it today. Again, look at my note to Joshua 11:2.
13:28 ZOT NACHALAT BENEY GAD LE MISHPECHOTAM HE ARIM VE CHATSEREYHEM
זֹאת נַחֲלַת בְּנֵי גָד לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם הֶעָרִים וְחַצְרֵיהֶם
BN: This is the inheritance of the Beney Gad, by their clans, their cities, and their villages.
13:29 VA YITEN MOSHEH LA CHATSI SHEVET MENASHEH VA YEHI LA CHATSI MATEH VENEY MENASHEH LE MISHPECHOTAM
וַיִּתֵּן מֹשֶׁה לַחֲצִי שֵׁבֶט מְנַשֶּׁה וַיְהִי לַחֲצִי מַטֵּה בְנֵי מְנַשֶּׁה לְמִשְׁפְּחֹותָם
BN: And Mosheh gave to the half-tribe of Menasheh; and this was the possession of the half-tribe of the Beney of Menasheh by their clans.
Why does it say SHEVET first, but then MATEH? Usually the former is a tribe but the latter a clan. We have seen this variation throughout Shemot (Exodus). Is it possible that there were two language-groups among the tribes, even in Yehoshu'a's, even perhaps in Mosheh's time, and each used a different word to say the same thing? We witness this regularly in English, where there are Norman French words, used by the nobility and middle class, and Anglo-Saxon or Viking words, used by the plebeians (no, that's Latin), used by the hoi poloi (no, that's Greek), used by the peasants (Norman French "paysan" = country dwellers) and the workers (Saxon "wirken") - and all four have the same meaning, but all four convey a very different tone. Was this also true of Shevet and Mateh? We can't know.
13:30 VA YEHI GEVULAM MI MACHANAYIM KOL HA BASHAN KOL MAMLECHUT OG MELECH HA BASHAN VE CHOL CHAVOT YA'IR ASHER BA BASHAN SHISHIM IR
וַיְהִי גְבוּלָם מִמַּחֲנַיִם כָּל הַבָּשָׁן כָּל מַמְלְכוּת עֹוג מֶלֶךְ הַבָּשָׁן וְכָל חַוֹּת יָאִיר אֲשֶׁר בַּבָּשָׁן שִׁשִּׁים עִיר
BN: And their border was from Machanayim, all of Ha Bashan, all the kingdom of Og, king of Ha Bashan, and all the towns of Ya'ir, which are in Ha Bashan, sixty cities.
CHAVOT: The root is CHAVAH, which is both the name of the mother-goddess, Eve in English, and the verb "to exist" (the male equivalent, which gives the father-god YHVH, is HAYAH, "to be"; his the essence, hers the manifestation). So CHAVOT are not really "towns", but "places where people exist", which could be any kind of settlement from a Bedou caravanserai to a major city.
YA'IR: Some contemporary scholars make the case for the name being CHAVOT-YA'IR, but this seems to me false, given the definition of CHAVOT, and the fact that it is plural. Having said which, Deuteronomy 3:14 names Ya'ir as a son of Menasheh, and ascribes the town to him, as HA BASHAN CHAVOT YA'IR. Deuteronomy comes after Numbers, but it was in the latter (32:41) that Ya'ir was described capturing and naming the place. 1 Kings 4:13 endorses this, but 1 Chronicles 2:22 insists that Ya'ir's father was named Seguv, rather than Menasheh, and reduces the number of his cities from thirty in Kings to twenty-three here - allowing us to regard the Menasheh claim as a late Yehudan, probably Ezraic, attempt to establish tribal ancestry where none had ever existed, and thereby to discount the Numbers and Deuteronomy claims.
Is it in fact that Ya'ir, "the enlightened one", is the name of a Buddha-like figure, and this a description of his cult-shrines - in which case CHAVOT-YA'IR does indeed make sense. And who might this "enlightened one" have been, given the date of Yehoshu'a, and the date of the Redaction? Odd coincidence, but the Yehoshu'a dates match the first appearance of Zoroaster in Persia, and the Redactor's dates match the epoch in which the Medean Persians formally adopted him as their "enlightened one".
And before I leave that rather that fanciful speculation behind, may I just point out that, in the Jewish retelling of the Persian New Year myth, in which Mordechai plays Marduk, Ester plays Ishtar, the sun-idol known in Yehudit as a Chaman (cf Leviticus 26:30) plays himself in human form, and poppy-seed cakes marking the fertility of the new-born spring are described as "Haman's ears", in that tale, in Esther 2:5 to be precise, Mordechai's father is named... Ya'ir. It was the Zoroaster-worshipping kings of the Medes who provided the means for the Yehudim to leave exile in Babylon and return to Yeru-Shala'im, and re-establish the Zionist state (the phrase is accurate; see Psalm 137). Naming Mordechai's father in honour of their Buddha would make perfect sense.
However, this is not precisely how the Tanach tells it. Or is it? Judges 10:3 tells us of another "enlightened one", named Ya'ir of the Beney Gil'ad, who "had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys", and "they had thirty towns in the land of Gil'ad, which to this day are called Chavoth Ya'ir." So there are the thirty - a school of Prophets, or disciples, following their Prophetic Judge, establishing their shrines in all the towns in the region. Might Ya'ir have been the local name for Zoroaster, calling him by his sobriquet, in the way that Yesha-Yah (Isaiah) was not his name, but his sobriquet ("YHVH is my salvation") and David likewise (Yedid-Yah in full, "the beloved of the goddess")?
The donkeys are also worth noting, because Ya'ir's full name in Judges is Ya'ir ben Shime'i ben Kish; the only other Shime'i of note is one of the two Chamberlains of King David's story. Kish, on the other hand, was a very major figure in King David's story, being the father of King Sha'ul - and it was precisely while going in search of his father's donkeys, mysteriously "gone astray" on a route that just happened to pilgrimage around the major shrines, that Sha'ul encountered the Prophet Shemu-El, and was chosen as Yisra-El's first king (1 Samuel 9). All coincidental? I doubt it.
SHISHIM IR: And now we can say for certain that IR means any settled place, from a hamlet to a town, but probably not the one way it is always translated, which is that much larger entity "a city".
13:31 VA CHATSI HA GIL'AD VE ASHTAROT VE EDRE'I AREY MAMLECHUT OG BA BASHAN LI VENEY MACHIR BEN MENASHEH LA CHATSI VENEY MACHIR LE MISHPECHOTAM
וַחֲצִי הַגִּלְעָד וְעַשְׁתָּרֹות וְאֶדְרֶעִי עָרֵי מַמְלְכוּת עֹוג בַּבָּשָׁן לִבְנֵי מָכִיר בֶּן מְנַשֶּׁה לַחֲצִי בְנֵי מָכִיר לְמִשְׁפְּחֹותָם
BN: And half of Ha Gil'ad, and Ashtarot, and Edre'i, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan, to the Beney Machir ben Menasheh, to half of the Beney Machir, by their families.
HA GIL'AD: And now we have a definite article attached to a town that is frequently mentioned, but always without the article. My paternal family came from the county of Kalisch in Poland, which also has a county town named Kalisch; is the definite article here making a similar distinction? In England we do it by adding the word "shire" to the name of the county, but leaving the county town alone: e.g Hereford and Herefordshire, Worcester and Worcestershire. A convoluted sentence in the original, it seems to infer that the division of Menasheh into two half-tribes was achieved by divinding Machir in twain.
EDRE'I: See my note to 12:4.
MACHIR: But this now opens up an entirely new question, which was half-raised (the pun is irresistible) when this happened with Menasheh in Numbers 32. It seemed odd then that a tribe would divide itself in half, but here it appears to be a family tradition; Machir, after all, is the eldest son of Menasheh (Numbers 26:29), and we have witnessed repeatedly the Tanism of the Beney Yisra-El, the eldest male forced to leave the tribe and find a wife whose tribe he could join (Kayin, Yisma-El, Esav...) while the youngest inherited the birthright and the parental blessing. Is that what is happening here?
But wait... look again at Numbers 26:29. Machir is the first-born of Menasheh, but the first-born of Machir is... Gil'ad... which brings us back in full circle to the start of this verse. I am imagining an English equivalent, in which John Anglo married Jane Saxon, and they had three lovely sons, named Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, and Hertford married ... and the very next verse starts by saying "these are the lands", "lands" named Gil'ad and Machir, "lands", not "people"...
13:32 ELEH ASHER NICHAL MOSHEH BE ARVOT MO-AV ME EVER LE YARDEN YERIYCHO MIZRACHAH
13:32 ELEH ASHER NICHAL MOSHEH BE ARVOT MO-AV ME EVER LE YARDEN YERIYCHO MIZRACHAH
אֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר נִחַל מֹשֶׁה בְּעַרְבֹות מֹואָב מֵעֵבֶר לְיַרְדֵּן יְרִיחֹו מִזְרָחָה
BN: These are the lands which Mosheh distributed as an inheritance in the plains of Mo-Av, on the far side of the Yarden, east of Yericho.
samech break
13:33 U LE SHEVET HA LEVI LO NATAN MOSHE NACHALAH YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL HU NACHALATAM KA ASHER DIBER LAHEM
וּלְשֵׁבֶט הַלֵּוִי לֹא נָתַן מֹשֶׁה נַחֲלָה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הוּא נַחֲלָתָם כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לָהֶם
BN: But to the tribe of Levi Mosheh did not give any inheritance: YHVH the god of Yisra-El was their inheritance, as he had told them.
Effectively repeating verse 14 - and see my note there. Note also the use of the name Elohey Yisra'el, which is plural.
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