Joshua 18:25-26

18:25 Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth, 18:26 Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah,

Joshua 18:28

18:28 Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city ¹  (that is, Jerusalem), ²  Gibeah, and Kiriath – a total of fourteen cities and their towns. ³  This was the land assigned to the tribe of Benjamin ⁴  by its clans.

Joshua 18:1

The Tribes Meet at Shiloh

18:1 The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and there they set up the tent of meeting. ⁵  Though they had subdued the land, ⁶ 

Joshua 10:26

10:26 Then Joshua executed them ⁷  and hung them on five trees. They were left hanging on the trees until evening.

Isaiah 10:29

10:29 They went through the pass,

spent the night at Geba.

Ramah trembled,

Gibeah of Saul ran away.

Hosea 5:8

The Prophet’s Declaration of Judgment

5:8 Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah!

Sound the trumpet in Ramah!

Sound the alarm in Beth Aven! ⁸ 

Tremble in fear, ⁹  O Benjamin!

¹ tn The word “city” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

³ tn The structure of this list presents problems. In v. 28 no conjunction appears before “Haeleph” or “Kiriath” in the Hebrew text. This suggests they should be compounded with the preceding names, yielding “Zelah Haeleph” and “Gibeah Kiriath” respectively. This results in a list of only twelve cities, however, while the summary statement (v. 28) gives the number fourteen. One should note, however, that the city lists in chap. 15 do not consistently use the conjunction before the name of each city. See also Josh 19:7, where no conjunction appears before “Rimmon,” but the summary assumes that Ain and Rimmon are distinct.

⁴ tn Heb “This is the inheritance of the sons of Benjamin.”

⁵ tn Heb “the tent of assembly.”

⁶ tn Heb “and the land was subdued before them.”

⁷ tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”

⁸ sn See the note on the place name Beth Aven in 4:15.

⁹ tc The MT reads the anomalous אַחֲרֶיךָ בִּנְיָמִין (’akharekha binyamin, “behind you, O Benjamin”), a reading followed by many English versions. The LXX reads ἐξέστη (exesth) which might reflect an alternate textual tradition of הַחֲרִדוּ בִּנְיָמִין (hakharidu binyamin, “Tremble in fear, O Benjamin”); the verb form would be a Hiphil imperative 2nd person masculine plural from חָרַד (kharad, “to tremble, be terrified”; BDB 353 s.v. חָרַד). For discussion of this textual problem, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:236.