Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
house." By later travellers it is described as a small place named Adomim , being still
called "the red field, because this is the colour of the ground; with a large square
building like a monastery still standing there, which was in fact at one time a fortified
monastery, though it is deserted now" ( Arvieux , Merk. Nachr. ii. p. 154). It is the
present ruin of Kalaat el Dem , to the north of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, or
Kalaat ed Domm , near the Khan Chadrur. Gilgal , or Geliloth (circle), was probably
the "small round valley" or "field of Adommim," of which Pococke speaks as being at
the foot of the hill on which the deserted inn was standing (viz., ed Domm; see
Pococke , Reise ins Morgenland, ii. p. 46). The valley ( nachal , rendered river ) to
the south of which Gilgal or the ascent of Adummim lay, and which was therefore to
the north of these places, may possibly be the Wady Kelt , or the brook of Jericho in
the upper part of its course, as we have only to go a quarter or half an hour to the east
of Khan Chadrur, when a wide and splendid prospect opens towards the south across
the Wady Kelt as far as Taiyibeh; and according to Van de Velde's map, a brookvalley
runs in a northerly direction to the Wady Kelt on the north-east of Kalaat ed
Dem. It is probable, however, that the reference is to some other valley, of which
there are a great many in the neighbourhood.
The boundary then passed over to the water of En Shemesh (sun-fountain), i.e., the
present Apostle's Well, Ain el Hodh or Bir el Khôt , below Bethany, and on the road
to Jericho ( Tobler , Topogr. v. Jerus. ii. pp. 398, 400; Van de Velde , Mem. p. 310),
and then ran out at the fountain of Rogel (the spies), the present deep and copious
fountain of Job or Nehemiah at the south-east corner of Jerusalem, below the junction
of the valley of Hinnom and the valley of Jehoshaphat or Kedron valley (see Rob.
Pal. i. p. 491, and Tobler , Topogr. v. Jerus. ii. pp. 50ff.).
Verse 8. It then went up into the more elevated valley of Ben-hinnom , on the south
side of the Jebusite town, i.e., Jerusalem (see at Josh 10:1), and still farther up to the
top of the mountain which rises on the west of the valley of Ben-hinnom , and at the
farthest extremity of the plain of Rephaim towards the north. The valley of Benhinnom
, or Ben-hinnom (the son or sons of Hinnom), on the south side of Mount
Zion, a place which was notorious from the time of Ahaz as the seat of the worship of
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