Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and de.ng~r, And make the impossibilities they fear." 4. Defective witness for God. Every such case of spiritual failure is a hindrance to the· progress of the kingdom of heaven among men, thwarts so far the Divine purpose in the triumph of truth and righteousness. The hostile forces of the world laugh at a half-hearted service of Christ. The strongholds of iniquity can never foll before a church enfeebled by the spirit of unbelief.-W.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XVI. 1-10. coincide precisely in its site with the old one (see eh. xvili. 13 ; a.Isa Gen. xxviil. 19 ; THE INHERITANCE OF EPHRAIM AND MANAS• xxxv. 6; Judg. i. 23). Bethel wa.s prob- BEH. Ver.1.-Pell Literallycameforth,i.e., ably built, as far as could be ascertained, out of the urn. The water of Jertcho. on the spot near the Canaanitish city where " This is the present fountain of es Sultan, the wanderer Jacob spent the night in half an hour to the west of Riha., the only which the famous vision appeared to him large fountain in the neighbourhood of (sec Gen. xxvili. 11). Knobel, however, Jerich'>, whose waters spread over the plam renders literally, Bethel-Luzah, as though and form a small brook" (or small stream, the older and later names had been here con- according to Von Schubert)," which flows in joined. The borders of Arch1. Rather, the the rainy season through the Wady Kelt borders of the Archite (cf. 2 Sam. xv. 32; into the Jordan" (Keil and Delitzsch). xvi. 16; 1 Chron. xxvil. 33). This is the This spring, which rises amid t~e nebek only clue we have to the residence or tribe" trees and the wheat fields, " sprmgs from of Hushai. the earth at the eastern base of a little Ver. 3.-Japhleti Rather, the.Japhlethite; knoll ; the water is sweet, clear, and agree- but it is unknown what this family was. able, neither cold nor warm" (Ritter). It Beth-boron the nether (see eh. x. 10). In flows he adds, into a basin nine feet broad, ver. 5 we have Upper Beth-boron, but the in which many fish may be seen playing. places were close together. For Gezer, see This border coincides with the northern eh. x. 33. border of Benje,m.i.n (see eh. xvili. 11-20). Ritter mentions another spring, nearer to Ver. 5.-The border of the children of the Kuruntul or Quaranta.nia range, and Ephraim. The Hebrew word is translated adds that, '' under the wise management of indifferently by coast and border _m our an efficient government, and with the translation. The border of Joseph 1s very security of the district from the depreda- slightly traced out by the historian. It is tions of predatory savages, the oasis of difficult to give a reRson for this fact, when Jericho might unquestionably resume the we remember that Joseph, consisting as it paradise.ical aspect it once bore." To the did of the preponderating tribe of Ephraim, wilderness. Or, by or alon9 the wilderness. together with ho.If the tribe of Manasseh, The Hebrew requires some preposition to constituted by far the most important be supplied. This wilderness is the same portion of Jewish territory. See, however, as that spoken of as the wilderness of Beth- Introduction for the bearing of this fact aven in eh. xviii. 12. Throughout Mount on the authorship of the book. It is by no Bethel. The Vulgate has, "to Mount means easy to de.fine the boundaries of tb~ Bethel." The LXX. renders, "unto the tribes· but with the utmost deference to the hill country unto Bethel." The Hebrew may authority ~f one so long engaged in the he rendered, "along the hill country u~to •actuo.l survey of the Holy Land as Mr. Bethel" (see eh. xviii. 12). The Synac Conder, I feel unable to accept the maps renders, " up to the mountain which goet):i be has given us in his ' Handbook ' as an unto Bethel ; " but we must understand this accurate account of them. Sometinies, of a range of mountains, and then we can perhaps, an eager attempt at the identi- identify the border with the double rocky fication of certain places may lead ast~y ridge whicb stretches from the Mons those who are most familiar with their Qnarante.nia, of which we have eJr~o.dy subject. But there are certain plain heard (eh. ii.), and from the pool of Ames statements of the Book of Joshua which cannot be lightly set aside. Thus the Sultan, just mentioned, as fe.r as Bethel.. Ver. 2.-,- From Bethel to Luz. Like extremity (n~]'h) of the border of Ephraim Jeruse.Iem and .lElia Capitolina, or old is distinctly stated in ver. 8 to be the sea. and new Carthe.ge, the new city did not To translate " westward " would rob the JOSHUA. s 268 THE IlOOK OF JOSHUA, [CH, XVI, 1-10,