Joshua 15:59

Verse 59. Eltecon: given afterwards to the tribe of Dan, (Calmet. 19:44,) and then to the Levites. Calmet. 21:13. The Alex. Septuagint here add many cities, which are omitted in Hebrew Calmet.—“Theco and Ephrata, (this is Bethlehem) and Phagor, and Artam, and Koulon, and Tatami, and Sores, and Karem, and Gallim, and Baither, and Manocho, eleven cities and their villages.” Bible. See Saint Jerome in Mic. verse 1. Calmet. Deuteronomy 27:4.—Dr. Wall says, “these cities were doubtless in the Hebrew copy of the Sept.” and “they are of such a nature, that it is scarcely possible to think them an interpolation.” The former critic thinks “the omission in the Hebrew was occasioned by the word villages occurring immediately before, and at the end of the words thus omitted; and indeed the same word occurring in different places, has been the cause of many and great omission in the Hebrew MSS. He thinks it less likely that the Jews should have designedly omitted Bethlehem here, because that place is mentioned as belonging to Juda, in several other parts of Scripture.” But is Ephrata ever joined with it, except in this passage, and in the text of Micheas? “And, therefore, though this remarkable omission was probably owing, at first, to some transcriber’s mistake, its not being reinserted might be owing to the reason specified by S. Jerom, out of malice to Christianity.” Kennicott, 2 Diss. 56.—Reland is astonished to find a place which was to be rendered so famous by the birth of the Messias, not enumerated in this place among the cities of Juda. But he observes that it is found in the Alexandrian version, p. 643. Palest.—S. Jerom will not decide absolutely whether the Jews have erased these cities, or the Septuagint have inserted them. As he undertook to translate the Hebrew as he found it, he has not admitted these cities into his translation, though there seems to be abundant reason for supposing that they are genuine. Bible.