BY LOT - We are not told in what manner the lot was cast. Perhaps two urns were employed, one containing a description of the several districts to be allotted, the other the names of the tribes; and the portion of each tribe would then be determined by a simultaneous drawing from the two urns. Or a... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CHILDREN OF JUDAH - No doubt, in particular, the kinsmen of Caleb, and perhaps other leading men of the tribe. These came before Joshua, with Caleb, in order to make it manifest that they supported his claim, to be secured in the possessions promised him by Moses before the general allotment sho... [ Continue Reading ]
MOSES SWARE - i. e. God swore; and His promise, confirmed by an oath, was communicated, of course, through Moses.... [ Continue Reading ]
FORTY AND FIVE YEARS - The word of God to Moses was spoken after the return of the spies in the autumn of the second year after the Exodus Numbers 13:25; subsequently, 38 years elapsed before the people reached the Jordan Numbers 20:1; after the passage of the Jordan seven more years had passed, whe... [ Continue Reading ]
The Anakims had in the course of Joshua’s campaigns in the south been expelled from “this mountain,” i. e. the mountain country round Hebron, but they had only withdrawn to the neighboring cities of Philistia Joshua 11:22. Thence, they had, as must be inferred from the text here, returned and reoccu... [ Continue Reading ]
A GREAT MAN - literally, the great man; i. e. the renowned ancestor of the tribe, regarded as the founder of its greatness Joshua 15:13.... [ Continue Reading ]