Joshua 13:5

the land of the Giblites i.e. the land of the inhabitants of Gebal, a name which occurs in Psalms 83:7,

" Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek;

The Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;"

and Ezekiel 27:8-9, "The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebaland the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers." It was a maritime town of Phœnicia. Its inhabitants are written "Giblians" in the Vulgate, and "Byblians" in the LXX. (while in 1 Kings 5:18 the word is rendered "stone-squarers"), whence we may infer the identity of the city with the Byblus of classical literature. Byblus was a seat of the worship of Adonis or Syrian Tammuz. The modern name is Jebail, about 22 miles north of Beyrout. The coins of Byblus have frequently the type of Astarte, also of Isis, who came here in search of the body of Osiris. "At Jebailand in other ancient Phœnician cities there are traces of the same large bevelled stones clamped with iron, which appear in the foundations of Solomon's temple. These are probably the work of the Giblites." See Ritter's Geog. Pal. II. 214, 215.

all Lebanon, toward the sunrising i.e. Anti-Lebanon.

from Baal-gad See above, note on Joshua 11:17.

the entering into Hamath The extreme northern boundary point of Palestine whither the spies originally penetrated (Numbers 13:21), and to which the kingdom of David and Solomon once actually extended (2 Samuel 8:3-12; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 1 Chronicles 18:3-11; 2 Chronicles 8:3-4). In the time of the Crusades it was called Epiphaneia, a town situated on the western bank of the Orontes, lower down the stream than Emesa. It is called "Hamath the Great" (Amos 6:2), and commanded the whole of the Orontes valley, from the low screen of hills which forms the watershed between the Orontes and the Litâny"the entrance of Hamath" to the defile of Daphne below Antioch.