Joshua 15:1-63

ORIGINAL LOT OF JUDAH, Joshua 15:1-63.

[The tribe of Judah received the first allotment, and a very disproportionate share of the Land of Promise, for its territory embraced nearly the half of western Palestine. This original lot, however, was afterwards diminished by assigning a part of it to Simeon. Joshua 19:1. The original borders, districts, and cities of Judah are detailed with great minuteness in this chapter, and to a much greater extent than those of any other tribe. Grove suggests that “this may be due either to the fact that the lists were reduced to their present form at a later period, when the monarchy resided with Judah, and when more care would naturally be bestowed on them than on those of any other tribe; or to the fact that the territory was more important, and more thickly covered with towns and villages, than any other part of Palestine.” Smith’s Bib. Dict. Many and great were the prophetic blessings pronounced on Judah by his father. Genesis 49:8-12. He was to be the pride and glory of his brethren, the mighty conqueror, whose symbol was the lion, and whose pre-eminence was represented by the sceptre and the ruler’s staff, never to depart “until Shiloh come.” The same prophetic blessing also characterized his section of the Promised Land. “The elevation of the hills and tablelands of Judah is the true climate of the vine, and at Hebron, according to the Jewish tradition, was its primeval seat. He bound ‘his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.’ Genesis 49:11. A vineyard on a hill of olives, with the ‘fence,’ and the ‘stones gathered out,’ and the ‘tower in the midst of it,’ is the natural figure which, both in the prophetical and evangelical records, represents the kingdom of Judah. Isaiah 5:1; Matthew 21:33. The vine was the emblem of the nation on the coins of the Maccabees, and in the colossal cluster of golden grapes which overhung the porch of the second temple.” Stanley.