Bible Strands
Joshua 19:30
Ummah, Aphek, and Rehob. There were twenty-two cities, along with their villages.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records the territorial allotment to the tribe of Asher during Joshua’s final distribution of the Promised Land. The text lists specific urban centers and their surrounding villages as part of this clan inheritance.
The words — The Hebrew עֶשְׂרִים וּ/שְׁתַּיִם ('esrim u./she.tayim) literally means "twenty and two," specifying the exact count of the listed cities. This numerical precision anchors the geographical inventory within the tribal boundary records.
The thread — Aphek appears again in Joshua 12:18 as a Canaanite king’s seat and in Joshua 13:4 near the border of the Amorites. The pattern of enumerating cities and their villages recurs throughout the tribal allotment chapters of Joshua 13–19.
Why it lands — The passage requires readers to acknowledge the deliberate, concrete allocation of land to each tribe as a fulfilled historical promise. It demands attention to the physical reality of Israel’s inheritance rather than abstract spiritualization.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Ummah also, and Aphek, and Rehob: twenty and two cities with their villages.
Cross-references
- Numbers 13:11 from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;
- Joshua 12:18 the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lasharon, one;
- Joshua 13:4 to the south, all the land of the Canaanites, from Mearah of the Sidonians to Aphek, as far as the border of the Amorites;
- Joshua 19:28 It went on to Ebron, Rehob, Hammon, and Kanah, as far as Greater Sidon.
- Joshua 21:31 Helkath, and Rehob—four cities, together with their pasturelands.
- 1 Samuel 4:1 Thus the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now the Israelites went out to meet the Philistines in battle and camped at Ebenezer, while the Philistines camped at Aphek.
- 1 Kings 20:30 The rest of them fled into the city of Aphek, where the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the remaining men. Ben-hadad also fled to the city and hid in an inner room.