Verse 31
31. Half Gilead The northern half, for the southern was assigned to Gad. Joshua 13:25.
Ashtaroth Generally supposed to be identical with the Ashteroth-karnaim of Genesis 14:5. It was doubtless so called from being the seat of worship of the Phenician goddess Ashtoreth, the Greek Astarte. Its ruins are supposed to lie at the modern Tell-Astereh, some fifteen miles east of the Sea of Galilee. Edrei was the other chief city of the kingdom of Bashan, and here King Og was defeated and slain. Numbers 21:33-35. It was a stronghold among the rocks, and its ruins have been found in the modern Edra, thirty miles or more northeast of the Sea of Galilee. J.L. Porter visited the ruins a few years ago and thus wrote: “The situation is most remarkable; without a single spring of living water; without river or stream; without access, except over rocks and through defiles all but impassable; without tree or garden. In selecting the site everything seems to have been sacrificed to security and strength. The huge masses of shattered masonry could scarcely be distinguished from the rocks that encircled them, and all, ruins and rocks alike, are black as if scathed by lightning.”
Unto the children of Machir “Because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan.” Joshua 17:1.
Even to the one half The heads of the families of this half are named in 1 Chronicles 5:24.]
Be the first to react on this!
