Joshua 15:20-32

Cities of Judah in the South

20. This is the inheritance "The speech of Achsah to her father was the best reason for the slight notice of this desert tract in later times, and is the best introduction to the real territory of Judah, on which we now enter. -Give me a blessing, forthou hast given me a southland; give me also springs of water." The wells of Beersheba were enough for the Patriarchs, the Amalekites, and the Kenites, but they were not enough for the daughter of Judah and the house of the mighty Caleb." Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 161. The territory of Judah, in average length about 45 miles and in average breadth about 50, was from a very early period divided into four main regions (i) the South; (ii) the Lowland; (iii) the Mountain; (iv) the Wilderness.

(α) The Southwas the undulating pasture country which intervened between the hills, the proper possession of the tribe, and the desert country which marks the lower part of Palestine.

(β) The Lowland, or, to give it its proper name, the Shephelah, was a broad strip of land lying between the central mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. From the edge of the sandy tract which fringes the immediate shore it stretched up to the bases of the hills of Judah the garden and granary of the tribe and formed the lower part of the maritime plain which extended along the whole seaboard of Palestine from "the river of Egypt" to Sidon.

(γ) The Mountain, or "the Hill Country," though not the richest, was at once the largest and the most important of the four. "Beginning a few miles below Hebron, where it attains its highest level, it stretches eastward to the Dead Sea and westward to the Shephelah, and forms an elevated district or plateau, which, though thrown into considerable undulations, yet preserves a general level in both directions."

(δ) The Wilderness, Midbah, which here, and here only, is synonymous with Arâbah, represents the sunken district adjoining the Dead Sea. See Mr. Grove's article in Smith's Bibl. Dict.