Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Joshua 13:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Introduction to the Division of the Land. - Jos 13:1-7. Command of the Lord to Joshua to distribute the land of Canaan by lot among the nine tribes and a half. Jos 13:1 contains only the commencement of the divine command; the conclusion follows in Jos 13:7. Jos 13:2-6 form a parenthesis of several clauses, defining the last clause of Jos 13:1 more fully. When Joshua had grown old, the Lord commanded him, as he was advanced in years, and there was still much land to be taken, to divide "this land," i.e., the whole of the land of Canaan, for an inheritance to the nine tribes and a half, and promised him at the same time that He would drive out the Canaanites from those portions of the land that were not yet conquered ( Jos 13:6). The words "grown old and come into years" (vid., Gen 24:1; Gen 18:11, etc.) denote advanced age in its different stages up to the near approach of death (as, for example, in Jos 23:1). Joshua might be ninety or a hundred years old at this time. The allusion to Joshua's great age serves simply to explain the reason for the command of God. As he was already old, and there still remained much land to be taken, he was to proceed to the division of Canaan, that he might accomplish this work to which he was also called before his death; whereas he might very possibly suppose that, under existing circumstances, the time for allotting the land had not yet arrived. - In Jos 13:2-6 the districts that were not yet conquered are enumerated separately. Jos 13:2-4 All the circles of the Philistines (geliloth, circles of well-defined districts lying round the chief city). The reference is to the five towns of the Philistines, whose princes are mentioned in Jos 13:3. "And all Geshuri:" not the district of Geshur in Peraea ( Jos 13:11, Jos 13:13, Jos 12:5; Deu 3:14), but the territory of the Geshurites, a small tribe in the south of Philistia, on the edge of the north-western portion of the Arabian desert which borders on Egypt; it is only mentioned again in Sa1 27:8. The land of the Philistines and Geshurites extended from the Sichor of Egypt (on the south) to the territory of Ekron (on the north). Sichor (Sihor), lit. the black river, is not the Nile, because this is always called היאר (the river) in simple prose ( Gen 41:1, Gen 41:3; Exo 1:22), and was not "before Egypt," i.e., to the east of it, but flowed through the middle of the land. The "Sichor before Egypt" was the brook (Nachal) of Egypt, the Ῥινοκοροῦρα, the modern Wady el Arish, which is mentioned in Jos 15:4, Jos 15:47, etc., as the southern border of Canaan towards Egypt (see at Num 34:5). Ekron (Ἀρρακών, lxx), the most northerly of the five chief cities of the Philistines, was first of all allotted to the tribe of Judah ( Jos 15:11, Jos 15:45), then on the further distribution it was given to Dan ( Jos 19:43); after Joshua's death it was conquered by Judah ( Jdg 1:18), though it was not permanently occupied. It is the present Akr, a considerable village in the plain, two hours to the south-west of Ramlah, and on the east of Jamnia, without ruins of any antiquity, with the exception of two old wells walled round, which probably belong to the times of the Crusaders (see Rob. Pal. iii. p. 23). "To the Canaanites is reckoned (the territory of the) five lords of the Philistines," i.e., it was reckoned as belonging to the land of Canaan, and allotted to the Israelites like all the rest. This remark was necessary because the Philistines were not descendants of Ca…
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