THE BOUNDS OF EPHRAIM AND WEST MANASSEH
(1 Chronicles 7:28-29).
Comp. 1 Chronicles 6:54, sqq., where a list of the cities of the Levites is similarly added to their tribal registers.
(28) And their possessions. — Heb., and their domain and their seats were Bethel and her daughters; “their domain,” that is, the domain of both divisions of the tribe of Joseph.
Bethel — originally assigned to Benjamin (Joshua 18:22), belonged later to the northern kingdom. The present list appears therefore to be younger than the disruption of Solomon’s empire.
Naaran, or Naarah (Naapá) (Joshua 16:7) was a town north-east of Jericho. Gezer lay on the southwest border of Ephraim (Joshua 16:3), Shechem (Nablûs, Νεάπολις) on the north. Gaza: so the LXX„ Vulg. (Aza which represents the Hebrew ‘Azzâh, i.e., Gaza), and Targum; but a great number of MSS. and seventeen editions read Ayyah, a place not mentioned elsewhere, but doubtless lying on the north-west border of Ephraim.
(29) And by the borders of the children of Manasseh. — Literally, and upon the hands of the sons of Manasseh, a favourite phrase with the chronicler, occurring nine times in Chronicles and once in Ezra. (See Note on 1 Chronicles 6:31.) The four cities lay within the territory of Issachar and Asher, but were assigned to Manassen (Joshua 17:11). They mark the northward marches of the two houses of Joseph, as the cities of 1 Chronicles 7:28 mark the southward. They long withstood the Israelite occupation (Joshua 17:12-16; see also Judges 5:19. “Then fought the kings of Canaan, in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo.”)