Second group of towns, containing those in the middle portion of the Shephelah, and of which some only Joshua 10:3, Joshua 10:10 can be identified.

Zenan,.... Here begins another list or catalogue of the cities in the valley or plain. Zenan perhaps is the same with Zaanan, Micah 1:11,

and Hadashah was so small a city in Judea in the times of the Misnic doctors, that they say (t) it had but fifty dwellings in it; and Jerom speaks (u) of a place called Adasa, in the tribe of Judah, in his times a village near Guphua; it should be Taphna:

and Migdalgad, of which we nowhere else read; some think it had its name from some famous exploit done here by one of the tribe of Gad, who came over with Joshua to assist in the war, as the stone of Bohan the Reubenite, Joshua 15:6.

(t) Misn. Eruvim, c. 5. sect. 6. (u) De loc. Heb. fol. 88. F.

The second group, containing the towns of the actual plain in its full extent from north to south, between the hilly region and the line of coast held by the Philistines: sixteen towns in all.

Joshua 15:37

Zenan, probably the same as Zaanan (Micah 1:11), is supposed by Knobel to be the ruins of Chirbet-es-Senat, a short distance to the north of Beit-jibrin (Tobler, Dritte Wand. p. 124). Hadashah, according to the Mishnah Erub. v. vi. the smallest place in Judah, containing only fifty houses, is unknown, and a different place from the Adasa of 1 Macc. 7:40, 45, and Joseph. Ant. xii. 10, 5, as this was to the north of Jerusalem (Onom.). - Migdal-gad is unknown. Knobel supposes it to be the small hill called Jedeideh, with ruins upon it, towards the north of Beit-jibrin (V. de Velde, R. ii. pp. 162, 188).

Zenan, and Hadashah, and Migdalgad,

15:20-63 Here is a list of the cities of Judah. But we do not here find Bethlehem, afterwards the city of David, and ennobled by the birth of our Lord Jesus in it. That city, which, at the best, was but little among the thousands of Judah, Mic 5:2, except that it was thus honoured, was now so little as not to be accounted one of the cities.