Joshua 16:2

2 From Bethel it went to Luz and proceeded to the border of the Archites by Ataroth.

Joshua 16:2 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 16:2

And goeth out from Bethel to Luz
For though these two places in time became one, yet they were originally distinct. Bethel, at which Jacob stopped, and who gave it its name, was a field adjacent to the city of Luz, ( Genesis 38:11 Genesis 38:19 ) ; and therefore with propriety may be, as they here are, distinguished:

and passeth along unto the borders Archi to Ataroth;
or to Archiataroth; these two words being the name of one and the same place, and to be joined as they are, in the Greek version, and others; and is the same with Atarothaddar, ( Joshua 16:5 ) ( 18:13 ) . Ataroth was its proper name, but it had these additional epithets to distinguish it from another Ataroth; see ( Joshua 16:7 ) ; Jerom ^F2 makes mention of Atharoth by Ramma, in the tribe of Joseph, and of another in the tribe of Ephraim, now a village at the north of Sebaste, or Samaria, four miles from it, called Atharus; the former is here meant.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 De loc. Heb. fol. 88. G.

Joshua 16:2 In-Context

1 The allotment for the descendants of Joseph went from the Jordan at Jericho to the waters of Jericho on the east, through the wilderness ascending from Jericho into the hill country of Bethel.

2 From Bethel it went to Luz and proceeded to the border of the Archites by Ataroth.

3 It then descended westward to the border of the Japhletites as far as the border of lower Beth-horon, then to Gezer, and ended at the Mediterranean Sea.

4 So Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, received their inheritance.

5 This was the territory of the descendants of Ephraim by their clans: The border of their inheritance went from Ataroth-addar on the east of Upper Beth-horon.