Judges 18:12

12 And going up they lodged in Cariathiarim of Juda: which place from that time is called the camp of Dan, and is behind Cariathiarim.

Judges 18:12 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 18:12

And they went up and pitched in Kirjathjearim in Judah
Of which place see ( Joshua 15:9 Joshua 15:60 ) . According to Bunting ^F1 it was sixteen miles from Zorah and Eshtaol, and this was their first day's march:

wherefore they called the name of that place Mahanehdan unto this day;
which signifies the camp of Dan, or of the Danites; so it was called in the times of Samson, ( Judges 13:25 ) and is a proof that this expedition was before his time; and it was so called, it seems, in the time of Samuel, the writer of this book:

behold, it is behind Kirjathjearim;
to the west of it; for though they are said to pitch in that place, the meaning is, that they pitched near it, in the fields adjacent to it, which were the most proper and convenient for a camp.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 Ut supra. (Travels of the Patriarchs p. 112.)

Judges 18:12 In-Context

10 We shall come to a people that is secure, into a spacious country, and the Lord will deliver the place to us, in which there is no want of any thing that groweth on the earth.

11 There went therefore of the kindred of Dan, to wit, from Saraa and Esthaol, six hundred men, furnished with arms for war.

12 And going up they lodged in Cariathiarim of Juda: which place from that time is called the camp of Dan, and is behind Cariathiarim.

13 From thence they passed into mount Ephraim. And when they were come to the house of Michas,

14 The five men, that before had been sent to view the land of Lais, said to the rest of their brethren: You know that in these houses there is an ephod and theraphim, and a graven and a molten god: see what you are pleased to do.