Joshua 16:2

2 From Bethel it went to Luz, passing on to Ataroth Addar, where the Archites lived.

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 southern boundary of the land assigned to the descendants of Joseph started from the Jordan near Jericho, at a point east of the springs of Jericho, and went into the desert. It went from Jericho up into the hill country as far as Bethel.

2 From Bethel it went to Luz, passing on to Ataroth Addar, where the Archites lived.

3 It then went west to the area of the Japhletites, as far as the area of Lower Beth Horon. It went on from there to Gezer and ended at the Mediterranean Sea.

4 The descendants of Joseph, the tribes of Ephraim and West Manasseh, received this land as their possession.

5 This was the territory of the Ephraimite families: their border ran from Ataroth Addar eastward to Upper Beth Horon,