And the border was drawn [thence]
From Bethhoron:
and compassed the corner of the sea southward;
it is hard to say what sea is meant, or what by it. Fuller F11 conjectures, that as the Hebrews call any confluence of water a sea, as we call such a "mere", the great waters in Gibeon may be meant, ( Jeremiah 41:12 ) ; for it cannot mean the Mediterranean sea, for Dan lay between Benjamin and that; and yet if a sea is meant, no other can be; wherefore it is best to render it the "west quarter", as it is in the latter part of this verse; and so the same word is translated, ( Joshua 18:12 ) ; the "west", and not the "sea", as it sometimes is; for the border of Benjamin did not reach the sea any where; though Josephus F12 makes it to extend to it, and says, that the length of it was from the river Jordan to the sea:
the hill that [lieth] before Bethhoron southward;
the hill that lay to the south of nether Bethhoron, as in ( Joshua 18:13 ) :
and the goings out thereof,
the end of the western coast,
were at Kirjathbaal, which [is] Kirjathjearim, a city of the children
of Judah;
of which see ( Joshua 15:9 Joshua 15:60 ) ;
this [was] the west quarter;
as thus described.