Joshua 18:13

13. [ Went over from thence According to our note on Joshua 16:1, this border turned off north of Jericho, and ran up so as to take in Zemaraim, (Joshua 18:22;) thence it passed westward to Ophni, (Joshua 18:24,) where it curved to the south so as to run down near Beth-el.

To the side of Luz… southward Literally, to the shoulder of Luz, that is, some eminence in the vicinity. Southward here does not mean that the border ran on the south side of Beth-el, but it designates the general course of the border as it passed near Beth-el.

Descended to Ataroth-addar That is, the border ran southward by the side of Luz as far as Ataroth.] See notes on Joshua 16:5-6. The nether Beth-horon still exists in the modern Beit-Ur-el-Tahta, situated on the top of a low ridge, which is separated by a narrow valley from the mountain on which the Upper Beth-horon stands.

See note on Joshua 10:10. South of this rises an eminence which is doubtless the hill here referred to.

[ 14. Compassed the corner of the sea southward Rather, turned toward the side of the sea southward. The meaning is simply that from the Lower Beth-horon Benjamin’s western border turned southward towards the sea. It did not run unto the sea, as some have thought, nor is the reference here to Ephraim’s border, which ran off from this point unto the Mediterranean. Dr. Thomson needlessly supposes that the pool of Gibeon is the sea here intended. But in giving these boundaries the word sea is so constantly used of the Mediterranean that it is very arbitrary to take it in this single instance in so limited a sense. The goings out of Benjamin’s western border were not at the sea, but at Kirjath-baal which is Kirjath-jearim. On this city see note at Joshua 9:17. It lay almost directly south of Beth-horon, so that we must understand Benjamin’s western border to have formed a curve turning from Beth-horon first seaward and then winding gradually round to Kirjath-jearim on the southern border.

This was the west quarter Literally, the side of the sea; that is, towards the sea.