Joshua 17:15

And Joshua answered them They expected of their fellow-tribesman a better guardianship of their interests.

If thou be a great people There is a kind of delicate irony in Joshua's reply. "Yes, it is true that thou art a numerous people, and hast great strength, and oughtest to have more than one share. But if thou wouldest have it, procure it for thyself! Rely on thine own power and resources!"

get thee up to the wood country i.e. the forest of the "mountain of Ephraim." This was a district, which extended as far south as Ramah and Bethel (1Sa 1:1; 1 Samuel 7:17; 2 Chronicles 13:19). It is an elevated district of limestone, consisting of rounded hills separated by valleys of denudation, but much less regular and monotonous than that part more to the south, about and below Jerusalem; with wide plains in the heart of the mountains, streams of running water, and continuous tracts of vegetation. That the "mount" was then covered with woods is clear from 1 Samuel 14:25; 2 Samuel 18:6, and even now travellers have found wooded heights, and forests of oak trees, between Carmel and the mountains of Samaria. To these mountain heights even the members of other tribes resorted for shelter and for power. "Ehud the Benjamite, when he armed his countrymen against Moab, -blew his trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim" (Judges 3:27-28); Deborah, though, as it would seem, herself of the northern tribes, -dwelt between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim" (Judges 4:5). Tola, of Issachar, judged Israel in Shamir, in Mount Ephraim (Judges 10:1). Samuel, too, was of Ramathaim-zophim of Mount Ephraim." Stanley, S. and P., p. 231. The name, "Mount Ephraim," is applied here, in anticipation, to the mountain which afterward received it as a standing name, from the tribe of Ephraim, to which it was first assigned.

cut down for thyself "Cut down for thyself there," says the great Captain, "in the land of the Perizzites (see above, Joshua 3:10) and of the giants" or Rephaim (see above, ch. Joshua 12:4), "if Mount Ephraim is too narrow."