John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 2. And goeth out from Bethel to Luz , etc.] 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 38:11,19); 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 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.
Matthew Henry Commentary
- The sons of Joseph.
--This and the following chapter should not be separated. They give the lots of Ephraim and Manasseh, the children of Joseph, who, next to Judah, were to have the post of honour, and therefore had the first an best portion in the northern part of Canaan, as Judah in the souther part. God's people now, as of old, suffer his enemies to remain Blessed Lord, when will all our enemies be subdued? 1Co 15:26. Do tho drive them all out; thou alone canst do it. These settled boundarie may remind us, that our situation and provision in this life, as wel as our future inheritance, are appointed by the only wise and righteou God, and we should be content with our portion, since he knows what is best for us, and all we have is more than we deserve _________________________________________________
Original Hebrew ויצא3318 מבית אל1008 לוזה3870 ועבר5674 אל413 גבול1366 הארכי757 עטרות׃5852