Joshua 13:5

[ 5. Giblites Inhabitants of Gebal, the Gyblos of the Greeks, the modern Jebail, situated on the seacoast at the foot of the northern slopes of Lebanon, and about seventeen miles north of Beyroot. A multitude of gray granite columns are built into the modern walls and houses, choke up the harbour, and lie scattered over the surrounding fields, and they attest the antiquity of the town. The Giblites were employed in building Solomon’s temple, (1 Kings 5:18, note,) and. according to Ezekiel 27:9, were skilled in shipbuilding.

Baal-gad See on Joshua 11:17. Hamath was probably founded by the youngest son of Canaan, (Genesis 10:18,) and so was one of the oldest cities in the world. In Amos 6:2, it is called “ the great.” Its king Toi made peace with David, (2 Samuel 8:9,) but Solomon seems to have subjugated the kingdom and made it a part of his own empire. 2 Chronicles 8:3. It early fall into the hands of the great Assyrian conquerors. 2 Kings 18:34. It still exists, in the beautiful valley of the Orontes, about sixty miles southeast of Antioch, and has a population of 30,000. It lies on both sides of the river, and is noted for the immense wheels, eighty feet in diameter, which are turned by the rapid current and used for irrigation. The entering into Hamath is a geographical term used to designate the northern border of Israel. Numbers 34:8; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 14:25. It was evidently some great pass connected with the Lebanon mountains, but which one has been a matter of dispute. Robinson and Porter identify it with the depression between the northern end of Lebanon and the Nusairiyeh mountains, which opens westward, towards the coast of the Mediterranean. But as the Israelites never occupied territory so far north as that, most sacred geographers identify this entering with the southern opening into the great valley of Coele-Syria. This is by far the most notable entrance into the ancient kingdom and land of Hamath.]