‘ And the border went up to Debir from the valley of Achor, and so northward looking towards Gilgal, that is over against the Ascent of Adummim, which is on the south side of the river, and the border passed along to the waters of Enshemesh and its goings out were at En-rogel.'
This Debir was not the one mentioned in Joshua 13:26; Joshua 15:15 but probably one above the Wadi Debr which is the lower part of the Wadi Mukallik, or near Tughret ed-Debr, south of the Ascent of Adummim. It is also not mentioned in the parallel Joshua 18:17. It was thus clearly not an important place. For ‘the valley of Achor' possibly we should translate ‘low lying plain of Achor'. El Buqei‘a is suggested as a possibility. It would be seen as an abandoned place, a place to be avoided. This was where Achan was stoned to death (Joshua 7:25).
“And so northward looking towards Gilgal, that is over against the Ascent of Adummim.” At this point the boundary moved northward towards the Ascent of Adummim, towards Gilgal. This would be a different Gilgal from the Israelite encampment. Its name, ‘a rolling' suggests that some religious activity took place at these sites involved with rolling stones, possibly to set up as altars, or bodies rolling in ecstasy in their depraved sexual rites. Some relate it to stone circles but if it were so we would have expected them to be discovered. It was probably the same as Geliloth (Joshua 18:17).
The Ascent of Adummim was a steep pass on the border of Judah and Benjamin, probably Tal‘at ed-Damm (the ascent of blood). This name was probably given because of the redness of the soil, but it may also have been a place where murderous robberies were common. This may have been the place in mind where the good Samaritan was pictured as finding the victim of robbery with violence.
“Which is on the south side of the river, and the border passed along to the waters of Enshemesh and its goings out were at En-rogel.” The ‘south side of the river' must refer to the impressive gorge of the Wadi el-Kelt. The waters of Enshemesh (‘spring of the sun') is probably the modern ‘Ain Haud, four kilometres (three miles) east of Jerusalem, just south of the Jericho road. ‘Its goings out' refers to the point at which a line comes to an end (see verses 4 and 11), thus there was now a deviation at En-rogel (‘well of the launderer'). This was just outside Jerusalem (2 Samuel 17:17; 1 Kings 1:9) and is known today as Job's Well.