Joshua 16:9

Ver. 9. And the separate cities for the children of Ephraim were, &c.— The natural sense of these words is, that besides the above-mentioned cities, through which the line of separation of the tribe of Ephraim, from that of Manasseh, crossed, the Ephraimites had some other cities beyond the boundaries of their country, in the land of the half-tribe of Manasseh, see ch. Joshua 17:7. Or else the words may be paraphrased thus: These are the cities which were separated for the children of Ephraim, in the country of Manasseh, with the villages which sprung from them. According to this interpretation, the historian speaks not of cities different from those just mentioned, but of those very cities; and he calls them separate cities, inasmuch as, the lot of the tribe of Manasseh proving too large in proportion to the number of its families, some cities were set apart from them, to be given to the children of Ephraim, who, on the contrary, were too much confined. See Wells. But here we should observe, 1. That, in the numbering of the tribes, the Ephraimites were less numerous than the Manassites by about twenty thousand men. Numbers 28:31. But afterwards Moses foretold to the Ephraimites, that there should be ten of them for one Manassite, Deuteronomy 33:17.; and the event justified the prediction. 2. That several celebrated cities, not mentioned here, fell to the lot of Ephraim. Such, among others, are Ramah, the country of Samuel, known in the New Testament under the name of Arimathea; Shiloh, where the tabernacle resided; Tirzah, the royal city of Jeroboam, and some of his successors; Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel, after the destruction of Tirzah; and Sichem, with the mountains of Ebal, Gerizzim, Sichar, &c.