And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,

The Jebusite, [Hebrew, Yªbuwciy (H2983)] - always in the singular, although rendered indifferently by both numbers in the English version. This tribe settled on the hills afterward occupied by Jerusalem, and the immediate vicinity-their territory, stretching southwards, bordered upon the desert which lay between Palestine and Egypt, and were a warlike tribe (Joshua 10:1). They are mentioned immediately after Heth, and before the Amorite-an arrangement in this ethnological chart which corresponded with the intermediate position the tribe occupied in the age of Moses (Num. 43:29), although, in the formula announcing the promised land, they are, perhaps owing to the smallness of their numbers usually mentioned last, (Genesis 15:21; Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 13:5; Exodus 23:23, etc.)

The Amorite, [Hebrew, Haa-'Emoriy (H567), in the singular; Septuagint, ton Amorraion] - a numerous and powerful tribe which occupied a great part of Canaan, both on the east and west of the Jordan (Genesis 14:13; Genesis 14:24; Deuteronomy 1:4; compared with Joshua 12:4; Joshua 13:12; Numbers 21:24; Joshua 10:10; Joshua 11:4; Judges 1:34-36). The Amorites were mountaineers who frequented the highlands of Judah and Ephraim, Bashan and Gilead, and were in this respect contrasted with the Canaanites, who settled in the Shephela, or maritime plain of Philistia, and the depressed Gh"r, or valley of the Jordan.

Girgasite, [Hebrew, ha-Girgaashiy (H1622), singular; Septuagint, ton Gergesaion.] This was one of the proto-tribes of Canaan; but there is no clue to discover their settlement, except a single passage, which affirms that it lay on the west of Jordan (Joshua 24:11). Some suppose them to have been a branch of the larger tribe, the Hivites, since they are not mentioned in most of the catalogues of the primitive tribes of Cannaan, though in one they are specified, while the Hivites are omitted.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising