Joshua 16:2

2 And it goes out from Beth-el to Luz, and on as far as the limit of the Archites to 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 And the limit of the land marked out for the children of Joseph went out from Jordan at Jericho, at the waters of Jericho on the east, in the waste land, going up from Jericho through the hill-country to Beth-el;

2 And it goes out from Beth-el to Luz, and on as far as the limit of the Archites to Ataroth;

3 And it goes down to the west to the limit of the Japhletites, to the limit of Beth-horon the lower, as far as Gezer; ending at the sea.

4 And the children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their heritage.

5 And the limit of the land of the children of Ephraim by their families was marked out in this way: the limit of their heritage to the east was Ataroth-addar, to Beth-horon the higher;