And the coast reacheth to Tabor
Tabor was the name of a mountain in those parts; it is generally supposed to be the mountain on which our Lord was transfigured, though it is not sufficiently evident; (See Gill on Jeremiah 46:18). There was a city of this name near it, ( 1 Chronicles 6:77 ) , and which is meant here, and which either gave unto or received name from the mount. The Greeks call it Itabyrium, and it is described by Polybius F7 as situated on a hill rising in the form of a pap or breast, and has an ascent of more than fifteen furlongs, and he calls it a city;
and Shahazimah
is not mentioned any where else;
and Bethshemesh;
there seem to have been several cities, at least more than one, of the name of Bethshemesh; one in the tribe of Judah, ( Joshua 21:16 ) ; and another in the tribe of Naphtali, ( Joshua 19:38 ) ; which perhaps may be the same with this, it lying on the borders of both tribes. In this, and so in others of the same name, was a temple dedicated to the sun by the Heathens, as there was one of the same name in Egypt for the same reason, ( Jeremiah 43:13 ) ;
and the outgoings of their border were at Jordan;
here it ended: so Josephus says, that the border of this tribe in the length of it were Mount Carmel (at one end), and the river (i.e. Jordan, at the other); and at the breadth of it the mountain Itabyrium, or Mount Tabor: it had Jordan on the east, the sea on the west, Zebulun on the north, and Manasseh on the south:
sixteen cities with their villages;
which was the sum total of them.