Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on 1 Samuel 13:18
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
And another company turned the way to Bethhoron, etc.] Of which name there were two cities, the upper and nether, and both in the tribe of Ephraim, of which (see <061603>Joshua 16:3,5) this lay northwest from the camp of the Philistines at Michmash; eight miles from it, according to Bunting f253: and another company turned to the way of the border, that looketh towards the valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness; some take this to be the Zeboim which was destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah; and the wilderness, the wilderness of Jordan; but as that, so the valley in which it stood, was turned into a bituminous lake; this seems to be a city in the land of Benjamin, (<161134>Nehemiah 11:34) near to which was a valley, and this towards the wilderness of Jericho, and so lay eastward; the Targum calls it the valley of vipers, perhaps from its being infested with many; and so David de Pomis f254 says it is the name of a place where plenty of serpents were found, and which he says were called so because of the variety of colours in them; with which agrees Kimchi’s note on the place; they seem to mean serpents spotted f255, as if they were painted and dyed of various colours, as the Hebrew word which is thus paraphrased signifies: according to Bunting f256, it was eight miles from Michmash.
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