Joshua 21:36

And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with her suburbs, and Jahazah with her suburbs,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:9-42 By mixing the Levites with the other tribes, they were made to see that the eyes of all Israel were upon them, and therefore it was their concern to walk so that their ministry might not be blamed. Every tribe had its share of Levites' cities. Thus did God graciously provide for keeping up religion among them, and that they might have the word in all parts of the land. Yet, blessed be God, we have the gospel more diffused amongst us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Merarite cities. Some of these places are not found in the list of Zebulonite cities in Joshua 19:10-16. The text is considered corrupt.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jos 21:9-42. The Cities of the Priests.

9-40. they gave … these cities which are here mentioned by name—It was overruled by the unerring providence of the Divine Lawgiver that the cities of the priests lay within the territories of Judah and Benjamin. This was a provision, the admirable wisdom and propriety of which were fully manifested on the schism that took place in the reign of Rehoboam.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Bezer, a city of refuge, as it is called Joshua 20:8, and therefore needless to be here repeated.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with her suburbs,.... Which was a city of refuge, and the fifth of them in this account, though not observed as such here, but is in the Greek version; see Joshua 20:8,

and Jahazah with her suburbs; called Jahaz; see Gill on Numbers 21:23.

Geneva Study Bible

And out of the tribe of Reuben, {m} Bezer with her suburbs, and Jahazah with her suburbs,

(m) Bezer and Ramoch were the cities of refuge under the Merarites and beyond Jordan, Jos 20:8.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. Bezer] See ch. Joshua 20:8; Jahazah, ch. Joshua 13:18 (Heb.).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - And out of the tribe of Reuben. This verse and the succeeding have the Masoretic note appended that they are not found in the Masora or true tradition. Kimchi therefore rejects them. But they are found in the LXX. and the rest of the ancient versions, and they are necessary to make up the number of forty-eight cities. Dr. Kennicott, as well as Michaelis, Rosenmuller, and Maurer defended their genuineness. So does Knobel, who complains that Rabbi Jacob Ben Chajim, in his Rabbinical Bible of 1525, has very improperly omitted these towns on the authority of the Masora, and that many editors have foolishly imitated him They have no doubt been omitted by the mistake of a copyist, who passed on from the אַרְבָע (four) of ver. 35 to that of ver. 37, omitting all that lay between. The LXX. adds here "the city of refuge for the slayer," words which may have possibly formed part of the original text, as they do in every other instance. Jahazah. It is worthy of remark that this city, with Heshbon and Jazer and Mephaath, fell into the hands of the Moabites in later times, a sad indication of religious declension (see Isaiah 15, 16; Jeremiah 48:21, 34). Joshua 21:36

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

From Reuben they received four: Gezer (Joshua 20:8 : see Deuteronomy 4:43), Jahza, Kedemoth, and Mephaath (Joshua 13:18).

(Note: R. Jacob ben Chajim has omitted Joshua 21:36 and Joshua 21:37 from his Rabbinical Bible of the year 1525 as spurious, upon the authority of Kimchi and the larger Masora; but upon insufficient grounds, as these verses are to be found in many good MSS and old editions of an earlier date than 1525, as well as in all the ancient versions, and could not possibly have been wanting from the very first, since the Merarites received twelve towns, which included the four that belonged to Reuben. In those MSS in which they are wanting, the omission was, no doubt, a copyist's error, occasioned by the homoioteleuto'n (see de Rossi variae lectt. ad h. l., and J. H. Michaelis' Note to his Hebrew Bible).)