Joshua 21:37

Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities.

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

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Kedemoth with her suburbs,.... Near to which was a wilderness of that name; see Deuteronomy 2:26,

and Mephaath with her suburbs; of which See Gill on Joshua 13:18; where the two preceding cities are mentioned along with it:

four cities, Joshua 21:35, are not in some ancient copies of the Hebrew Bible, as is noted by the Masorites; but are in some others, as Kimchi owns, and stand in the Targum, in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and in a manuscript referred to by Hottinger (e); and the same words are to be, found in 1 Chronicles 6:78, and are absolutely necessary to be retained, since without them there would be but eight cities for the Merarites, whereas they are expressly said to be twelve, Joshua 21:40.

(e) Thesaur. Philolog. l. 1. c. 2. p. 181, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

37. Kedemoth] Joshua 13:18; Mephaath, see ch. Joshua 13:18.

Joshua 21:37

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).)