and the border reached along from the top of the mountain toward the spring of the waters of Nephtoah, and went out toward the cities of mount Ephron; and the border reached along to Baalah, that is, Kirjath-jearim;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and the border turned from Baalah westwards toward mount Seir, and passed toward the side of Har-jearim, that is, Chesalon, northwards, and went down to Beth-shemesh, and passed Timnah.
Joshua 15:10 traces one stretch of Judah's northern border: west past a mount, along a shoulder of hills, then down to a town. Why would God keep a line of names like this, and do the names themselves carry anything?
One writer contrasts two ways of reading the second half of Joshua — as a survey of land, or as a description of God's inheritance:
Most commentators had only been able to grope among the names. Here and there they could point out a place identified by its modern Arabic name, or by some obscure historical allusion. One writer, on the contrary, looked on this as the description of God's inheritance for His earthly people, and spiritually for ourselves. He found in each tribe, with its boundaries, some features of divine truth. In the name of each spring and hill and valley and town he found some spiritual blessing in Christ. One could almost draw a map of our spiritual inheritance.
The verse opens with the border bending west. One writer pauses on that turn toward the sea, and on what the sea pictures.
Now for the first time, as we come to Dan, we notice that the border turns seaward... The sea is also Judah's western border... It is the picture of man fallen, in his restlessness and barrenness, chafing against all restraint. Yet it is that out of which the influence of heaven can draw up the fertilizing rain, as God's mercy draws from man's misery its opportunity to show itself. Trial is needed because of what we are, and in it God's governmental ways are often seen most clearly.
Baalah stands at the start of the verse, and the same writer ties it to pride. What comes next on the line is not a descent but a climb, and its name is not a comfortable one.
Clearly the repetition of the last name, Baalah, is meant to show how it governs the next part of the road. Pride must be brought low, yet the road does not at once descend. Instead we find a "mount." But we are going seaward — the way of trial — and the mount is "Seir," the "rugged." It is not Esau's mount, of course, but only like it. It suggests hostility as well as roughness. And though God "gave Mount Seir to Esau," it was a gift suited to the man — a rough home for a rough person.
The hill's name, Jearim, is what is left of Kirjath-jearim, "city of the woods." The verse then adds a second name.
We are traveling northward, facing mysteries we have to learn. The sign that we are learning them lies in the explanation here — "that is Chesalon." The word means "confidence" as well as folly — the folly of a false confidence. But here we are surely not to take it as a sentence passed by someone else, but by a soul on itself. We have passed the "city" that was to last; its houses have not continued: there is not Kirjath-jearim, but only Jearim. It is repentance worked by God in the soul; and as evidence of it the line now runs downward; there is self-humbling.
The town's name means "the house of the sun." The direction of travel is the point.
For the sun dwells in the valleys, and its influence is felt most there, though the spiritual truth goes beyond the natural picture. Of the spiritual truth: "thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite." (Isaiah 57:15.) So the line could only reach Beth-shemesh by going down. How plainly the spiritual meaning governs it all! Is there not verbal inspiration in this?
Beth-shemesh was also a real town with a history:
A town of the Levites on the north border of Judah. God Himself guided the ark of the covenant there by a miracle when the Philistines sent it back from Ekron. There the people were struck down for looking into it.
The last name in the verse is Timnah:
Timnah means "apportionment," "what is measured out." It is a beautiful sign of true humbling, and of one with whom the high and lofty One dwells. He now takes his portion as measured out by Him, and wants no more.
- Pride. Baalah stands for pride, and pride must be brought low. The road does not drop at once: first comes the climb of Seir, "the rugged."
- Repentance. The city is gone and only the woods remain. "That is Chesalon" reads like a soul's own verdict on its false confidence.
- Descent. The line then runs down to Beth-shemesh, "the house of the sun." God dwells in the high and holy place, and with the contrite too.
- Portion. Timnah, "what is measured out," ends the road. The humbled heart takes the portion God measures out, and wants no more.
- Inheritance. Read this way, a bare list of names becomes a map of spiritual blessing in Christ — truth in every spring, hill, valley and town.
And the border went out to the side of Ekron northwards, and the border reached along toward Shicron, and passed mount Baalah, and went toward Jabneel; and the border ended at the sea.
Judah's northern border runs its last stretch here: past Ekron, round to Shikkeron and Mount Baalah, and out to the sea. A bare list of place names looks unpromising, so what is here for a reader to gain?
One writer says these lists are not as meaningless as they look. There is a clue that opens them:
This gives us a clue that lets us see into what looks like a meaningless mass of words — the long family lists, or the detailed lists of the cities and borders of the land. (See Joshua 15 — 21.)
A border, unlike a city or a river, leaves no mark on the ground. One writer presses that point:
The border all the way through is nothing but a line in the air. So it takes understanding to see it, and obedience to keep it.
Ekron sits oddly in the record. It lies inside Judah's line, yet another tribe received it. One writer weighs both the name and the oddity:
Ekron seems to mean "rooting out," and we have met it before as a Philistine city… Ekron falls inside Judah's boundary line, and is later named as a city of Judah; yet it is given to Dan. If we apply it spiritually as the rooting out of sin, it falls naturally to Dan, as a necessary part of self-judgment. Yet if Judah's "praise" is the "confession of Christ's name," then His having suffered for sins is part of that confession, which Peter links for us with "ceasing from" sins (1 Peter 3:18; 4:1). We must keep this link with Judah, while we give Dan the city.
The same writer then warns against pushing the idea too far:
But what does the rooting out of sin mean? Certainly not the rooting out of the old nature, as some dream… What kind of "rooting out" can we speak of, then? Keeping your garden clear of weeds, even though you cannot destroy their seeds in the soil. We are not to leave one kind alone, or even grow it, while we root out others. And a person may be so unskilled that he cannot tell weeds from flowers. That is where the apostle's word comes in: "So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man." (Acts 24:16.) This earnest and completely unsparing dealing with all sin is what Ekron seems to mean here.
One writer reads the last three names as one lesson:
"The boundary bends around to Shikkeron" — the name means "satiation with drink," and not necessarily in a bad sense… "And passes along to Mount Baalah and goes out to Jabneel." We have had Baalah before, and the repetition cannot be without meaning… Baalah here is not a city of man's making, but something of God's making. It does not exalt itself, as before: it is exalted. Then notice the last name, Jabneel; it means "God is the builder" — not man. Put it all together, and the lesson seems plain: the exaltation man misses when he seeks it for himself, God has for him in His own way, and so satisfies man's thirst to the full! "When I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your likeness." (Psalm 17:15.)
Judah's land simply runs out. One writer sees that ending as God's own boundary for the sea:
The shore that is Judah's limit is the one God has given the sea, and the sea cannot pass it, or turn back to cover the earth. Every way, trial ends in showing the power of God, and that He is for His people. At the sea, Jabneel, "God is the builder," proves itself in this barrier of sand — so slight in appearance, in fact so mighty… The sea will not last forever: in the new world there will be none. But it will live on in its voice, which will forever proclaim the glory of God in His mastery of all circumstances, by which all things work together for good, whatever their character. When all conflict and trial are past, we shall praise God for the sea.
Another writer names the sea and reads that coast as protection:
Judah's northern border began at the north end of the Dead Sea and ran westward until it ended at "the Great Sea," the Mediterranean, whose coastline served as Judah's western border. The Great Sea is a picture of the Gentile nations (Rev. 17:15), so often in upheaval and unrest, pressing in on the land, but held in check by the power of God… So Judah's western border tells us this: though the world may threaten to swamp the testimony of the people of God, God is greater than the world, and will preserve His people.
- The line. A border leaves no mark on the ground. It takes understanding to see, and obedience to keep.
- The rooting out. Ekron means "rooting out": unsparing dealing with all sin. It is weeding the garden, not destroying the seeds in the soil.
- The satisfaction. Shikkeron, "satiation with drink," is not a bad word here — God fills the thirst man cannot fill for himself.
- The builder. Baalah returns as a mountain: exalted, not self-exalting. Jabneel means "God is the builder" — the height man grabs at, God gives.
- The end. The line stops at the sea. The shore God set for the waters is Judah's own limit, and trial ends in showing His power.