Judah's Boundaries, Achsah's Springs, and Jerusalem's Holdout

Judah’s lot is described first and at greatest length, sixty three verses against a handful for some tribes. The wilderness of Zin is where Miriam died and where the people quarrelled at Meribah (Numbers 20:1–13), so the southern edge of Judah runs past the place where Moses lost his entry to the land.

“The bay” is lashon, a tongue, the same word as the “wedge”, the tongue of gold, that Achan hid (7:21). The border starts from the tongue of water at the southern end of the Dead Sea, where the shore bends away.

Maaleh-acrabbim is “the ascent of scorpions”, a pass climbing out of the Arabah (Judges 1:36). “Fetched a compass” is 1611 English for “turned about” or “made a circuit”. The line swings south to take in Kadesh-barnea.

“The river of Egypt” is the Wadi el-Arish, a seasonal stream, not the Nile. The verse suddenly says “your south coast”, addressing the reader, because it reproduces God’s words to Moses in Numbers 34:3–5, where the same southern border was first laid out.

The Dead Sea forms the whole eastern border. The word “bay”, lashon, returns at the northern end, where the Jordan runs into the sea, so the same term marks both ends of Judah’s eastern side.

Beth-hogla means “house of the partridge”; Hoglah was also the name of one of Zelophehad’s daughters (Numbers 26:33). The stone of Bohan, “thumb”, son of Reuben, was a landmark on the west side of the Jordan whose origin is unrecorded; only its name survives, here and in 18:17.

Adummim, “the red places”, is the pass of red rock on the road climbing from Jericho to Jerusalem, the road of the traveller who fell among thieves (Luke 10:30). En-rogel, a spring below Jerusalem, is where Adonijah later held his feast to claim the throne (1 Kings 1:9).

The valley of the son of Hinnom became notorious for child sacrifice under Judah’s later kings (2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31), and its name, Ge-hinnom, became Gehenna. The valley of the giants, the valley of Rephaim, was where David twice defeated the Philistines (2 Samuel 5:18–25).

The waters of Nephtoah are often placed at Lifta, just west of Jerusalem. Baalah, the older name of Kirjath-jearim, suggests an ancient shrine of Baal; 2 Samuel 6:2 calls it “Baale of Judah”, the place from which David brought up the ark.

This Mount Seir is a ridge west of Jerusalem, not the mountains of Edom. Beth-shemesh, “house of the sun”, is where the Philistines’ cows brought the ark back on a cart (1 Samuel 6:12). Timnah is the town where Samson saw a Philistine woman he wanted to marry (Judges 14:1).

Jabneel is later Jabneh, the Jamnia of Greek and Roman times, where rabbis regrouped after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. The border reaches the sea near there, north of Philistine territory, with Ekron on its line.

The circuit closes in the order south, east, north, west. In practice the western coast belonged to the Philistines (13:3), and the “great sea” was more claim than holding. The last words, “according to their families”, frame the whole survey as a family grant.

“Arba the father of Anak” gives three generations: Arba, his son Anak, and Anak’s sons in the next verse. The city was named for the grandfather of the men Caleb drove out. The grant is traced to “the commandment of the LORD to Joshua”.

Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai are the same three names the spies saw at Hebron in Numbers 13:22, forty five years before. The men who had frightened ten spies are driven out by the one spy who had not been frightened. Judges 1:10 credits the tribe of Judah with the deed.

Debir’s location is still debated: the archaeologist W. F. Albright proposed Tell Beit Mirsim, and many now favour Khirbet Rabud, southwest of Hebron. The same account is told again almost word for word in Judges 1:11–15.

Offering a daughter to the man who took a city or killed an enemy was a known custom. Saul makes the same promise to whoever kills Goliath: “will give him his daughter” (1 Samuel 17:25). Achsah is the prize before she becomes a speaker.

“The son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb” can be read two ways: Othniel is Caleb’s younger brother, or his nephew, son of a brother named Kenaz. Judges 1:13 adds that he was “Caleb’s younger brother”. Either way, Achsah marries within her own family.

Here Achsah moves Othniel to ask; the Greek version reverses it, “he moved her”. “Lighted off” translates tsanach, a rare verb used of Jael’s tent peg “fastened into the ground” (Judges 4:21). Rebekah also alighted from her camel on meeting Isaac (Genesis 24:64).

“Blessing” here means a gift, as when Jacob pressed Esau, “Take, I pray thee, my blessing” (Genesis 33:11). “Springs” is gullot, basins or pools, from a word for a bowl, as in “the golden bowl be broken” (Ecclesiastes 12:6). A dry Negev field is worth little without them.

The list that follows is arranged in districts, each closed with a count of cities “with their villages”. Many scholars think these districts reflect the administrative divisions of the later kingdom of Judah, a proposal about the list’s origin that the text does not state.

Kabzeel was the home town of Benaiah son of Jehoiada, David’s champion who killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day (2 Samuel 23:20). The list starts at the far south, “toward the coast of Edom”.

Kinah may be connected with the Kenites, who settled in the Negev near Arad (Judges 1:16), though the link is an inference from the name. Dimonah and Adadah are otherwise unknown; many names in these lists appear nowhere else.

This Kedesh and this Hazor are southern towns, different from Jabin’s Hazor in the north and Kedesh in Galilee. The same place names recur across the land, which is why the lists sometimes add a gloss to tell one from another.

This Ziph is a southern one, different from the Ziph of verse 55, near which David hid and whose people betrayed him to Saul (1 Samuel 23:19). Telem may be the Telaim where Saul mustered his army against Amalek (1 Samuel 15:4).

Kerioth, or Kerioth-hezron, is one of the places proposed for the name Iscariot, often explained as “man of Kerioth”. “Hezron, which is Hazor” shows the list glossing itself, giving an older or alternative name.

Moladah was later assigned to Simeon (19:2), whose towns lay inside Judah’s territory, and it was resettled by returning exiles (Nehemiah 11:26). Its name may mean “birth” or “descent”.

Many southern names begin with Hazar, a chatser, an enclosure: these were settlements of walled pens for flocks. Beth-palet, “house of escape”, was also resettled after the exile (Nehemiah 11:26).

Beer-sheba was named for the oath and wells of Abraham and Abimelech (Genesis 21:31), and “from Dan even to Beer-sheba” became the proverbial measure of Israel (Judges 20:1). The Greek reads Bizjothjah as “and her villages”, a small scribal difference.

This Baalah is a southern town, called Balah in the Simeon list (19:3), not the Baalah of verse 9. Azem, or Ezem, also passes to Simeon (19:3; 1 Chronicles 4:29).

Eltolad appears as Tolad in 1 Chronicles 4:29, and Chesil corresponds to Bethul in the Simeon list (19:4). Hormah recalls the vow made against Arad in the wilderness (Numbers 21:3).

Ziklag was given to David by Achish king of Gath while he was an outlaw, “wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day” (1 Samuel 27:6); the Amalekites later burned it (1 Samuel 30:1). Madmannah and Sansannah lay near it in the Negev.

Ain and Rimmon may be a single place: Nehemiah 11:29 has En-rimmon, and 19:7 lists them separately. How such pairs are counted is one reason the total of twenty nine does not match a plain count of the names.

“The valley” is the Shephelah, the low hills. Eshtaol and Zoreah are Samson’s country: he was born in Zorah, the Spirit first moved him “between Zorah and Eshtaol” (Judges 13:25), and he was buried between them (16:31).

En-gannim means “spring of gardens”. Enam may be the Enaim where Tamar sat veiled by the road to Timnath, “in an open place”, literally at the opening of Enaim (Genesis 38:14), though the identification is uncertain.

The Philistines gathered for the battle with Goliath at Socoh, “and pitched between Shochoh and Azekah” (1 Samuel 17:1). Jarmuth and Adullam flank the same valley of Elah. This one line of the list contains the whole battlefield.

Sharaim, “two gates”, is the Shaaraim along whose road the Philistines fled after Goliath fell (1 Samuel 17:52). A fortress with two gates excavated at Khirbet Qeiyafa from 2007 has been proposed as Shaaraim. Counting Gederothaim gives fifteen names against “fourteen cities”; the Greek reads it as “her sheepfolds”.

Zenan is probably the Zaanan of Micah 1:11, one of the Shephelah towns in Micah’s lament of puns: “the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth.” Hadashah means “new”, and Migdal-gad “tower of Gad”.

This Mizpeh, “watchtower”, is one of several towns of that name. Joktheel was the name King Amaziah later gave to Sela in Edom after he captured it (2 Kings 14:7).

Bozkath was the home of Adaiah, the mother of King Josiah (2 Kings 22:1), the king under whom the book of the law was found. Lachish and Eglon, two of the kings of the southern coalition, sit on either side of it.

Cabbon, Lahmam and Kithlish are named nowhere else in the Old Testament. Much of what is known of the ancient geography of Judah comes from lists like this one, where towns otherwise lost survive as a single name.

Beth-dagon, “house of Dagon”, carries the name of the grain god the Philistines worshipped (Judges 16:23; 1 Samuel 5:2). Gederoth was taken by the Philistines in the reign of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:18). The district closes with Makkedah, city of the cave.

Ashan was later reassigned to Simeon (19:7) and given to the priests (1 Chronicles 6:59). A town could pass from one list to another as tribes shifted.

Ashnah appears in this chapter twice, in verse 33 and here, apparently two different towns of the same name in the same tribe. Jiphtah and Nezib are otherwise unknown.

Keilah is the town David rescued from the Philistines, whose citizens would then have handed him to Saul (1 Samuel 23:1–12). Micah punned on Achzib, whose name sounds like achzav, a deceptive brook: “the houses of Achzib shall be a lie” (Micah 1:14).

“Her towns” is literally “her daughters”: Hebrew calls the villages dependent on a city its daughters. Ekron worshipped Baal-zebub (2 Kings 1:2), and a royal inscription found there in 1996 names Achish, king of Ekron.

The allotment reaches across the Philistine plain to the sea. Judges 1:18 records that Judah took Gaza, Askelon and Ekron, and the very next verse admits it “could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron”.

Ashdod held the temple of Dagon where the captured ark was set and the idol fell on its face (1 Samuel 5:1–5). Gaza is where Samson carried off the city gate and its posts on his shoulders (Judges 16:3).

The mountain district begins. Jattir was one of the towns to which David sent a share of the spoil taken from the Amalekites (1 Samuel 30:27). This Socoh is a hill country town, different from the Socoh of verse 35. This Shamir is not the Shamir of Ephraim where the judge Tola lived (Judges 10:1).

Kirjath-sannah is a third name for Debir, after Kirjath-sepher in verse 15. Sannah may be a variant spelling of sepher, or a separate name meaning a palm branch. The list notes the identification so that no reader counts Debir twice.

Eshtemoh, or Eshtemoa, received a share of David’s spoil (1 Samuel 30:28) and became a Levitical city (21:14); a large hoard of silver was found there in 1987. Anab was one of the towns cleared of Anakim (11:21).

Giloh was the home of Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor who joined Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15:12). Holon later went to the Levites (21:15), and Goshen is the southern district of 10:41.

Arab was the home of Paarai the Arbite, one of David’s thirty mighty men (2 Samuel 23:35). Dumah and Eshean lay in the hills southwest of Hebron.

Beth-tappuah, “house of the apple”, is generally placed at the modern village of Taffuh, west of Hebron, which keeps the name. Aphekah is yet another town built on the common name Aphek, stronghold.

Hebron, the city at the centre of Caleb’s account, appears here under its old name, Kirjath-arba, as one town among nine in a district list. The register makes no exception for its fame.

This Carmel is a town in the Judean hills, not the mountain by the sea: Nabal of Maon had his flocks and his business in Carmel (1 Samuel 25:2). David hid in the wilderness of Ziph (1 Samuel 23:14), and Juttah became a Levitical city (21:16).

This Jezreel is a Judean town, not the valley in the north; David’s wife Ahinoam came from it (1 Samuel 25:43). This Zanoah is the second in the chapter, distinct from that of verse 34.

Timnah here is the hill country town to which Judah went up to shear his sheep, and on whose road Tamar waited for him (Genesis 38:12–14). Gibeah, “hill”, is a Judean one, not Saul’s Gibeah in Benjamin.

Beth-zur, “house of the rock”, was fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:7) and later saw a battle of Judas Maccabeus (1 Maccabees 4:29). Halhul survives as the name of a town just north of Hebron.

After this verse the Greek Old Testament has a whole extra district of eleven towns, including Tekoa, Ephratah, which is Bethlehem, and Etam. The Hebrew lacks them, so Bethlehem, David’s city, is missing from the Hebrew list of Judah’s towns.

Kirjath-baal is a third name for Kirjath-jearim, after Baalah in verse 9. This Rabbah is a small Judean town, not Rabbah of the Ammonites. A district of only two cities closes here.

Secacah is named in the Copper Scroll found near Qumran, a list of hidden treasures, and some scholars identify Secacah with the site of Qumran itself. Beth-arabah lies in the Jordan valley on Judah’s border (verse 6).

En-gedi, a spring on the western shore of the Dead Sea, is where David cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe in a cave (1 Samuel 24:1–4), and its vineyards appear in the Song of Solomon (1:14). “The city of Salt” may lie near the sea’s northwestern shore.

Judges 1:21 repeats this sentence almost exactly, but with Benjamin in place of Judah: the city sat on the border between the two (18:28). Judges 1:8 also says Judah burned Jerusalem, and only David finally took “the strong hold of Zion” (2 Samuel 5:6–7).