1st Kings Chapter 4 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - The son of Geber [possibly son of the Geber mentioned in ver. 19] in Ramothgilead [two districts east of the Jordan are now enumerated. And first, the territory of Gad. Bamoth-gilead was a Levitical city (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 21:38). Its selection as a city of refuge (Joshua 20:8), and as the seat of Bengeber's prefecture, together with the constant wars waged for its possession (1 Kings 22:3; 2 Kings 8:28; 2 Kings 9:14) show that it was a position of great strength and importance]; to him pertained the towns of Jair [the Havoth Jair are strictly the lives (i.e., villages, because men live there) of Jair. So Gesenius, who cites Eisleben and similar names] the son Manasseh [it is doubtful whether the judge of that name (Judges 10:3) or Jair, the son of Segub (called a "son of Manasseh" in Numbers 32:41, because his grandmother was a daughter of the great Machir, though his father belonged to Judah, 1 Chronicles 2:21), is intended. Probably it is the latter. (They can hardly be one and the same person, though they are often identified, as, e.g., in the Speaker's Comm. on Judges 10:3. But they belong to different periods.) Curiously enough, the Havoth Jair are mentioned in connexion with each (see Numbers 32:41; Deuteronomy 3:4, 5, 14; Joshua 13:30; 1 Chronicles 2:22; Judges 10:4), but in every ease except the last the reference is to the son of Segub. As the judge was probably one of his descendants, it is not surprising that the judge's sons should possess some of the villages of Jair], which are in Gilead; to him also pertained the region [חֶבֶל, lit., measuring cord, came to signify the region measured] of Argob [elsewhere "the Argob," i.e., the stony. This is the region subsequently known as Trachonitis, now called the Lejah. It is distinguished here and in Joshua 13:30, and 1 Chronicles 2:22 from the Gileadite district just mentioned, with which it is sometimes confounded. Both seem to have been conquered by Jair, but the towns of the former bore the name of Havoth Jair and these of Bashan Havoth Jair. Cf. Deuteronomy 3:4, 5, 14 with Numbers 32:41. The latter consisted of threescore cities, with walls, gates, and bars. This remarkable district, twenty-two miles in length by fourteen in breadth, is "wholly composed of black basalt, which appears to have issued from innumerable pores in the earth in a liquid state .... Before cooling, its surface was violently agitated, and it was afterwards shattered and rent by convulsions .... Strange as it may seem, this ungainly and forbidding region is thickly studded with deserted cities and villages" (Porter, "Giant Cities of Bashan," also in Kitto's Cycl. 3. p. 1032; Dict. Bib. 1:104)] which is in Bashan, threescore great cities with walls and brazen bars. [These words are a reminiscence of Deuteronomy 3:4, 5.]

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) The sixth division, large, but probably less fertile, crosses the Jordan, and includes a great portion of the territory of Manasseh and Gad. The region of Argob, "the rocky region" (afterwards translated into the Greek name Trachonitis), is noticed in Deuteronomy 3:4; Deuteronomy 3:13-14, as the land of Og, covered with great cities, taken by Jair, son of Manasseh, and called Havoth-Jair--"the towns of Jair." Ramoth-gilead was a Levitical city and a city of refuge, in Gad (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 20:8; Joshua 21:38), famous afterwards in the wars with the Syrians (1Kings 22:3; 2Kings 8:28; 2Kings 9:1). . . .