Joshua 19:47

went out too little for them The words "too little" are inserted in our Version. They are not found in the original Hebrew, which literally means, the border of the children of Dan went out from them, i.e. the border of the children of Dan was extended. "Squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, its energies were great beyond its numbers." Stanley's Sin. and Pal., p. 395; Lectures, p. 268.

went up to fight "Stieded vp, and fouзten," Wyclif. Har d pressed by the Amorites, whom they were unable to expel from the plain (Judges 1:34), and by the Philistines, they longed for an addition to their territory, they sent out five spies from two towns in the low country, who tracked the Jordan to its source beyond the waters of Merom, and came to an eminence on which rose the town of

Leshem or Laish, far up in northern Palestine, the modern Tell el-Kâdynear Bâniâs. It was a colony from Sidon, and its inhabitants, separated from their mother city by the huge mass of Lebanon and half of Anti-Lebanon, "dwelt quiet and secure" (Judges 18:7), in the enjoyment of the warm climate and exquisite scenery, and tilling the fertile soil, irrigated by many streams. The spies marked the spot, and on their return bade their brethren arise, and take possession of a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth(Judges 18:10), and the soil of which "even now produces large crops of wheat, barley, maize, sesame, rice, and other plants with very little labour … while horses, cattle, and sheep fatten on the rich pastures, and large herds of black buffaloes luxuriate in the streams and deep mire of the marshes." See Thomson's Land and the Book, p. 214; Robinson, Bib. Res. iii. 396.

therefore the children of Dan went up to fight On receiving the news six hundred Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol girded on their weapons of war (Judges 18:11), and pushed their way to the sources of the Jordan, and finding the town of Laish just as the spies had described it, far from its mother city, dwelling quiet and secure, they burst upon it, scaled its walls (Judges 18:27), and

took it and set it on fire, massacring the inhabitants. Then they rebuilt the town, and dwelt therein, and

called Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father The name Tell el-Kâdi =" the mound of the Judge", still preserves the ancient Dan = "judge." See Tristram's Land of Israel, p. 580.