Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
great perplexity, until C. v. Raumer succeeded in removing the difficulty, by showing
that the district of the sixty towns of Jair, which was upon the eastern side of the
Jordan, is called Judah here, or reckoned as belonging to Judah, because Jair, the
possessor of these towns, was a descendant of Judah on the father's side through
Hezron (1 Chron 2:5,21-22); whereas in Josh 13:30, and Num 32:41, he is reckoned
contra morem , i.e., against the rule laid down in Num 36:7, as a descendant of
Manasseh, on account of his descent from Machir the Manassite, on his mother's side.
(Note: See C. v. Raumer's article on "Judaea on the east of Jordan," in Tholuck's litt. Anz. 1834, Nos. 1
and 2, and his Palästina, pp. 233ff. ed. 4; and for the arbitrary attempts that had been made to explain the
passage by alterations of the text and in other ways, see Rosenmüller's Bibl. Alterthk. ii. 1, pp. 301-2; and
Keil's Comm. on Joshua, pp. 438-9.)
Verse 35. The fortified towns of Naphtali were the following. Ziddim: unknown,
though Knobel suggests that "it may possibly be preserved in Chirbet es Saudeh , to
the west of the southern extremity of the Lake of Tiberias ( Rob. iii. App.);" but this
place is to the west of the Wady Bessum, i.e., in the territory of Issachar. Zer is also
unknown. As the LXX and Syriac give the name as Zor, Knobel connects it with
Kerak , which signifies fortress as well as Zor (= maatsowr (OT:4692)), a heap of
ruins at the southern end of the lake ( Rob. iii. p. 263), the place which Josephus calls
Taricheae (see Reland , p. 1026) - a very doubtful combination! Hammath (i.e.,
thermae ), a Levitical town called Hammaoth-dor in Josh 21:32, and Hammon in 1
Chron 6:61, was situated, according to statements in the Talmud, somewhere near the
later city of Tiberias, on the western shore of the Lake of Gennesareth, and was no
doubt identical with the koo'mee Ammaou's in the neighbourhood of Tiberias, a
place with warm baths ( Jos. Ant. xviii. 2, 3; Bell. Judg. iv. 1, 3).
There are warm springs still to be found half an hour to the south of Tabaria, which
are used as baths ( Burckhardt , Syr. pp. 573-4; Rob. iii. pp. 258ff.). Rakkath
(according to the Talm. and Rabb. ripa littus ) was
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