Joshua 13:31

Ashtaroth See ch. Joshua 12:4, so called doubtless from being a seat of the worship of Ashtoreth, the principal female divinity of the Phœnicians, the Astarte of the Greeks and Romans. The only trace of the name yet recovered is Tell-Ashterahor Asherah.

and Edrei See above, ch. Joshua 12:4. The northern part of Gilead was given to Machir, the eldest son of the patriarch Manasseh (1 Chronicles 7:14), or rather the half of his male descendants. They consisted of seven families, whose heads are named 1 Chronicles 5:24. So great was their power, that the name of Machir occasionally supersedes that of Manasseh. They took the bold "tract of Argob … sixty great cities (Deuteronomy 3:14), among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, district in the whole country." Thus it is plain that the half tribe of Manasseh occupied by far the largest extent of land on the east of the Jordan. It embraced (a) the inaccessible heights and impassable ravines of Gilead; and (b) the almost impregnable tract of Argob, where "all is stone," "an ocean of basaltic rocks and boulders tossed about in the wildest confusion." "The same martial spirit, which fitted the western Manasseh to defend the passes of Esdraelon, fitted -Machir, the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead," to defend the passes of Haurân and Anti-Libanus; -because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan." " Stanley's Lectures, I. 219. Of the development of the tribe subsequently we have a remarkable illustration at the time of the coronation of David at Hebron. On that occasion, "while the western Manasseh sent 18,000, and Ephraim itself but 20,800, the eastern Manasseh, with Gad and Reuben, mustered to the number of 120,000, thoroughly armed a remarkable demonstration of strength, still more remarkable when we remember the fact that Saul's house, with the great Abner at its head, was then residing at Mahanaim on the border of Manasseh and Gad." See Smith's Bib. Dict. Art. "Manasseh."