Joshua Chapter 9 verse 17 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 17. - On the third day. After the trick was discovered. Keil remarks that we need not suppose that the three days were consumed on the march. Not only did Joshua, when celerity was necessary, perform the journey in a single night, but the whole distance was not more than eighteen or twenty miles, if we accept the hypothesis of a second Gilgal. Now their cities were. Beeroth still exists, we are told, as el-Bireh (Robinson 2:132. So also Vaudcvelde and Conder). Jerome identified it with a place only seven miles from Jerusalem, which is an obvious error. It contains nearly 700 inhabitants, and is only about twenty minutes' walk from el-Jib, or Gibeon. Kirjath-jearim (the name means the city of forests) is well known in the history of Israel (e.g., Judges 18:12). But it is, chiefly remarkable for the twenty years sojourn of the ark there (1 Samuel 7:2). It was also known by the name of Baalah, Kirjath-Baal (Joshua 15:9, 60; 2 Samuel 6:2). The Hivites seem to have been removed thence (probably to Gibeon), for there is no trace of any non-Jewish element in the population in the account of the reception of the ark among them (see 1 Samuel 6.). It is called Baale of Judah in 2 Samuel 6:2 (cf. Joshua 18:15). The Jewish population seems to be due to one of the posterity of Caleb (see 1 Chronicles 2:50-53). Modern explorers, with the exception of Lieut. Conder, have identified Kirjath-jearim with Kuriet-el-Enab, "the city of the grape," about four miles from el-Jib, or Gibeon. This is the opinion of Robinson and Vandevelde. Supposing it to be near Beth-shemesh, on the authority of Josephus, Lieut. Conder places it at 'Arma, west of Bethlehem, and identifies the waters of Nepbtoah with a fountain nearly due south of the valley of giants or Rephaim (see Joshua 15:9). But this is too far from Gibeon. He identifies Kuriet-el-Enab with Kirjath in Joshua 18:28, and regards this as one of the cities of Benjamin within the border. But this Kirjath may be Kirjath-jearim, and may as reasonably, standing on the border, be accounted to belong to both tribes, as Zorah, Eshtaol (mentioned in the boundaries of Judah and Dan), Beth-arahah, possibly Gibeah or Gibeath (belonging to Judah and Benjamin), and even Jerusalem itself (see Joshua 15:53). The identification of Kirjath-jearim with Kuriet-el-Enab, of the waters of Nephtoah with Ain Lifta, giving a line running northwestward from the valley of Rephaim, seems more probable as the border of Judah and Benjamin, and the word "compassed," or rather deflected, adds probability to this interpretation (see Joshua 15:9, 10, and notes).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(17) Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim.--The first three of these were assigned to Benjamin (Joshua 18:25-26), the last to Judah (15:60), in the division of the land. The fact that the larger portion of the territory of the Gibeonites was in the tribe of Benjamin explains how Saul was tempted to confiscate their possessions for the purpose of supplying his followers with fields and vineyards (1Samuel 22:7). He appears to have carried out his purpose in the case of Beeroth (2Samuel 4:2-3), but not as regards all the Gibeonite towns. Gibeon became a city of the priests (Joshua 21:17), and also a principal place of worship and the seat of the tabernacle (as Kirjath-jearim was of the ark) in later times. (See 1Samuel 6:21; 1Samuel 7:1, &c.; 1 Chron. 20:29; and 2Chronicles 1:3-6.) The fact that the Gibeonites were dedicated to the service of the sanctuary may partly account for this. In Gibeon, Solomon asked and received the wisdom which Joshua and Israel at this time did not ask. . . .