Joshua 12:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

2 first appearances in the Hebrew Bible
Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

לַשָּׁר֖וֹן

Shârôwn

H8289

“to/for the · Sharon”

Preposition, Determined + Noun, Proper

Appears 7× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: probably abridged from H3474

TWOT: None

Sharon = "a plain" - plain, level (noun masculine) - the district lying between the mountains of central Palestine and the Mediterranean Sea and north of Joppa (noun proper locative) - a district on the east of the Jordan around Gilead and Bashan (noun proper locative)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
4: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לַשָּׁר֖וֹן Sharon H8289 — appearing just 7 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

These words make their first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

אֲפֵק֙ Aphek H663
לַשָּׁר֖וֹן Sharon H8289

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לַשָּׁר֖וֹן Sharon H8289 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 nouns
2 adjectives

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מֶ֤לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
אֶחָ֔ד one H259 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 6 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 4 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Joshua 12:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 13:4 on the south; all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongs to the Sidonians, to Aphek, to the border of the Amorites;
Joshua 19:30 Ummah also, and Aphek, and Rehob: twenty-two cities with their villages.
1 Samuel 4:1 The word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines encamped in Aphek.
Isaiah 33:9 The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off [their leaves].

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 6 words vs World English Bible 10. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Joshua 12:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

מֶ֤לֶךְ אֲפֵק֙ אֶחָ֔ד מֶ֥לֶךְ לַשָּׁר֖וֹן אֶחָֽד

the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 12:18 Septuagint · lemma form

βασιλεύς αφεκ ὁ σαρων

the king of Ophec of Aroc,

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

מַלְכָּא דַאֲפֵק חָד מַלְכָּא דְלַשָׁרוֹן חָד:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Joshua 12:18 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 18. Aphek] There were several cities of this name: one in the tribe of Asher, Jos 19:30, another in the tribe of Judah, 1Sa 4:1; 1Sa 29:1; and a third in Syria, 1Kg 20:26, and 2Kg 13:17. Which of the two former is here intended cannot be ascertained.

Lasharon] There is no city of this name known. Some consider the ל lamed in the word לשרון lashsharon to be the sign of the genitive case, and in this sense it appears to have been understood by the Vulgate, which translates rex Saron, the king of Sharon. This was rather a district than a city, and is celebrated in the Scriptures for its fertility; Josh 33:9; Josh 35:2. Some suppose it was the same with Saron, near Lydda, mentioned Ac 9:35.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

18. Aphek] A royal city of the Canaanites, probably the same as the Aphekah of Jos_15:53.

Lasharon] Only mentioned here. The site is unknown.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

The king of Aphek, one,.... There was a place called Aphekah in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:53; and an Aphek that was on the border of the Amorites, Jos 13:4; and another in the tribe of Asher, Jos 19:30; but Adrichomius (n) places this Aphek in the tribe of Issachar, whose king Joshua smote, and takes it to be the same place where the Philistines in the times of Samuel and David brought their armies against Israel, Sa1 4:1; and where the king of Syria fought against Israel, Kg1 20:26; and says that its ruins were now shown in the great plain not far from Gilboa to the east of Mount Carmel, and five miles from Tabor:

the king of Lasharon, one; which, according to the Vulgate Latin version, is the same with Saron, which, in Act 9:35, in some copies is called Assaron; so Adrichomius (o), who places it in the tribe of Ephraim, and takes it to be the same Sharon Isaiah speaks of, Isa 33:9; and of which Jerom says (p), to this day there is a country between Tabor and the lake of Tiberias called Saronas, and also that from Caesarea of Palestine to the town of Joppa, all the land that is seen bears that name.

(n) Theatrum Terrae Sanct. p. 35. (o) Ib. p. 30. (p) De loc. Heb. fol. 94. M.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Aphec. A place of this name was in the tribe of Aser, another in that of Juda. --- Saron. Hebrew, "Lasharon;" probably Sarona, (Acts ix. 35,) or a canton near Joppe. (Eusebius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

18. Aphek — This can hardly be the Aphek of the tribe of Asher (Jos_19:30) which is mentioned in Jos_13:4, but it was probably identical with the Aphek not far from Jezreel, where the Philistines gathered their forces before the fearful battle of Gilboa. 1Sa_29:1. Its site has not been certainly identified. Lasharon is mentioned here only and is now unknown. Some think the first syllable is not an integral part of the name, but would read king of Sharon. But this is unlikely.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Joshua, in the Historical, opens this verse with 6 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Shârôwn (“Sharon”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Sharon” (Shârôwn) contribute to the verse as a whole?
2 words here appear for the first time in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
1 Chronicles 5:16 shares the word «Sharon» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“king” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs shorter here. What questions does that raise?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
Reading how Adam Clarke's Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

2 words make their first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 4 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.