And thine elder sister [is] Samaria,.... The metropolis of the ten tribes; "sister" to the Jews, because of the same descent, having one and the same father; the "elder" or "greater" x, because more in number and power; the kingdom of Israel consisted of ten tribes, and the kingdom of Judah but of two; and the ten tribes also were the first in the apostasy from the true worship of God:
she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand; as Samaria the sister was the metropolis of the ten tribes, her daughters are the other cities and towns belonging thereunto; and so the Targum renders it, she and her villages; these were situated to the north of the land of Israel, as Judah was to the south, which with the Jews were left and right; as a man standing with his face to the east has the north on his left and the south on his right side:
and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, [is] Sodom and her daughters; where Lot the kinsman of Abraham lived, and from whom sprung the Ammonites and Moabites. Sodom was a lesser kingdom than that of Judah, and which lay to the south; that is, to the right of it; even that and the other cities, which perished with it, called her daughters, as Admah, Zeboim, &c.
x הגדולה "major", V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius.