Second group of nine towns, situated somewhat to the north of the last mentioned. Of these Dumah is perhaps the ruined village "Ed Daumeh," in the neighborhood of Hebron; and Beth-tappuah, i. e. "house of apples," "Teffuh," a place which has still a good number of inhabitants, is conspicuous for its olive groves and vineyards, and bears on every side the traces of industry and thrift.

Arab,.... Arab is the same Jerom (i) calls Ereb, and was in his time a village in the south, and was called Heromith:

and Dumah; Duma, Jerom says (k), was a large village in the south, also on the borders of Eleutheropolis, seventeen miles from it:

and Eshean, of which we have no account.

(i) De loc. Heb. fol. 91. B. (k) Ibid. fol. 90. K.

The second group of nine towns, to the north of the former, in the country round Hebron.

Joshua 15:52

Arab is still unknown; for we cannot connect it, as Knobel does, with the ruins of Husn el Ghurab in the neighbourhood of Semua (Rob. i. p. 312), as these ruins lie within the former group of towns. Duma, according to Eusebius the largest place in the Daromas in his time, and seventeen miles from Eleutheropolis, is probably the ruined village of Daumeh, by the Wady Dilbeh (Rob. i. p. 314), which is fourteen miles in a straight line to the south-east of Eleutheropolis according to the map. Es'an (Eshean) can hardly be identified with Asan (1 Chronicles 4:32), as Van de Velde supposes, but is more likely Korasan (1 Samuel 30:30). In that case we might connect it with the ruins of Khursah, on the north-west of Daumeh, two hours and a half to the south-west of Hebron (Rob. iii. p. 5). As the Septuagint reading is Σομά, Knobel conjectures that Eshean is a corrupt reading for Shema (1 Chronicles 2:43), and connects it with the ruins of Simia, on the south of Daumeh (Seetzen, iii. 28, and Rob. iii.App.).

Arab, and Dumah, and Eshean,

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.