Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
Rummanim , four hours to the north of Beersheba ( Rob. iii. p. 8).
Not more than thirty or thirty-five minutes distant from this, between Tell
Khuweilifeh ( Rob. iii. p. 8) or Chewelfeh ( V. de Velde ) and Tell Hhora , you find a
large old but half-destroyed well, the large stones of which seem to belong to a very
early period of the Israelitish history ( V. de Velde , ii. p. 153). This was mentioned as
a very important drinking-place even in the lifetime of Saladin, whilst to the present
day the Tilâlah Arabs water their flocks there (see Rob. iii. p. 8). To all appearance
this was Ain (see V. de Velde , Mem. p. 344). "All the cities were twenty and nine,
and their villages." This does not agree with the number of towns mentioned by
name, which is not twenty-nine, but thirty-six; to that the number twenty-nine is
probably an error of the text of old standing, which has arisen from a copyist
confounding together different numeral letters that resembled one another.
(Note: Some commentators and critics explain this difference on the supposition that originally the list
contained a smaller number of names (only twenty-nine), but that it was afterwards enlarged by the
addition of several other places by a different hand, whilst the number of the whole was left just as it was
before. But such a conjecture presupposes greater thoughtlessness on the part of the editor than we have
any right to attribute to the author of our book. If the author himself made these additions to his original
sources, as Hävernick supposes, or the Jehovist completed the author's list from his second document, as
Knobel imagines, either the one or the other would certainly have altered the sum of the whole, as he has
not proceeded in so thoughtless a manner in any other case. The only way in which this conjecture could
be defended, would be by supposing, as J. D. Michaelis and others have done, that the names added were
originally placed in the margin, and that these marginal glosses were afterwards interpolated by some
thoughtless copyist into the text.
But this conjecture is also rendered improbable by the circumstance that, in the lists
of towns contained in our book, not only do other differences of the same kind occur,
as in v. 36, where we find only fourteen instead of fifteen, and in Josh 19:6, where
only thirteen are given instead of fourteen, but also differences of the very opposite
kind-namely, where the gross sum given is larger than the number of names, as, for
example, in Josh 19:15, where only five names are given instead of twelve, and in ch.
19:38, where only sixteen are given instead of nineteen, and where it can be shown
that there are gaps in the text, as towns are omitted which the tribes actually received
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