Joshua 15:1

Ver. 1. This then was the lot of the tribe of—Judah— In one of the following Chapter s we see, that the first care of Joshua, Eleazar, and the princes appointed to divide the conquered country, was, to have a plan of the whole drawn out, and to divide it into nine parts and a half, as equally as possible, calculating the extent and goodness of the district. This done, they cast lots in the manner before described, Numbers 26:53.; and the lot first assigned a portion to the tribe of Judah; as it were, to confirm the pre-eminence which Jacob's famous prediction had promised to him before all the rest.

By their families— It should constantly be remembered, that the lot determined nothing more than the right of each tribe to such or such a portion of the general division into nine provinces and a half. It then remained with Joshua and the other commissioners, to give each family lands proportioned to its situation, without partiality or respect of persons. Thus the district in which each tribe was to be settled was marked out, as it were, by the hand of God; but the bounds of it were fixed by the general and the heads of the people, who, on an estimation of the value of the lands, and the necessity of the families, contracted or extended those bounds according to their discretion. See chap. Joshua 19:9.

To the border of Edom; the wilderness of Zin southward— The tribe of Judah was the most southwardly of all. Its limits took up the south side, from the arm or point of the Salt or Dead sea on the south, along Edom, or Idumea, passing by the mountains of Acrabbim, the desart of Zin, Kadesh-barnea, Hezron, Adar,—Karkaa, Azmon, and the river of Egypt, and so on to the Mediterranean. See the three following verses, Numbers 1:5 and Wells's Geogr. vol. 2: chap. 5.