Ver. 24. All the kings thirty and one— The LXX reckon and specify but twenty-nine, and of them too they disfigure the names. We must not be surprised at seeing so many kings in so small a country. Each city and its territory had its own. What was the king of Beth-el? He and the king of Ai together had hardly twelve thousand subjects. Such were kingdoms in their first state everywhere. Caesar, in his Commentaries, speaks of four kings in the single county of Kent. How many then must there have been in all Great Britain? Tacitus says, that the Silures and Brigantes had each of them their own king. Caesar tells us, that among the Gauls there were as many kings as princes. Livy says the same thing of Spain; and Vopiscus introduces the emperor Probus writing to the senate, that he had subdued Germany, and saw at his feet nine kings of different nations, &c.
REFLECTIONS.—The conquered countries of Canaan are here described, and the cities with their kings, no less than thirty-one: a proof of the vast fertility of the land, which could maintain such a number of populous cities with their villages. But as God's blessing made it thus fruitful for his people's sake, their sin has long since brought down a curse of barrenness upon it, so that there is hardly a town of importance left; and the land is so desolate, that it scarcely maintains the few wretched inhabitants which remain.