Joshua 18:22

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and Beth Arabah, and Zemaraim, and Bethel,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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וּצְמָרַ֖יִם

Tsᵉmârayim

H6787

“and · Zemaraim”

Conjunction + Noun, Proper

Appears 2× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: dual of H6785

TWOT: None

Zemaraim = "double fleece of wool" - a city in northern Benjamin near Bethel - a hill in Ephraim

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 →

5: words
3: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וּצְמָרַ֖יִם Zemaraim H6787 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

וּצְמָרַ֖יִם Zemaraim H6787

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וּצְמָרַ֖יִם Zemaraim H6787 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

2 Chronicles 13:4

Grammatical profile

5 nouns

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וּבֵ֧ית Beth-arabah H1026 ×2
וּבֵֽית Bethel H1008 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 7 words from the Hebrew and 6 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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 5 Hebrew tokens and 6 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 18:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 10:18 the Arvadite, the Zemarite, and the Hamathite. Afterward the families of the Canaanites were spread abroad.
Joshua 15:6 and the border went up to Beth Hoglah, and passed along by the north of Beth Arabah; and the border went up to the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben;
Joshua 18:18 and it passed along to the side over against the Arabah northward, and went down to the Arabah;
1 Kings 12:29–32 He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
2 Chronicles 13:4 Abijah stood up on Mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel:

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.

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

Hebrew Joshua 18:22 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּבֵ֧ית הָֽעֲרָבָ֛ה וּצְמָרַ֖יִם וּבֵֽית אֵֽל

and Beth Arabah, and Zemaraim, and Bethel,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 18:22 Septuagint · lemma form

καί βαιθαβαρα καί σαρα καί βησανα

and Baethabara, and Sara, and Besana,

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)

וּבֵית מֵישְׁרָא וּצְמָרַיִם וּבֵית אֵל:

(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 18:22 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 →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

22. 4. Beth-arabah] See note above, Jos_15:6.

5. Zemaraim is unknown. 6. Bethel, see Jos_18:13.

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

And Betharabah,.... Of the first of these; see Gill on Jos 15:6,

and Zemaraim; one of the sons of Canaan was named Zemira, Gen 10:18; by whom this city Zemaraim might be built, or however have its name given it, in memory of him; there was a mountain of this name in the tribe of Ephraim, near to which this city might be, Ch2 13:4.

and Bethel; of the last of these; see Gill on Jos 7:2.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

22. Beth-arabah — Jos_15:6. [

Zemaraim — This place is without much doubt identical with the ruins five miles north of Jericho, called es-Sumrah. The name is radically the same, and the site is where we should naturally expect to find the ruins of this ancient town of Benjamin.

Beth-el — Jos_7:2.

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 5 words (3 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Tsᵉmârayim (“Zemaraim”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Zemaraim” (Tsᵉmârayim) shape what this verse is saying?
This is the first place “Zemaraim” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does 2 Chronicles 13:4, which shares the word «Zemaraim», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “Beth-arabah” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
Compare how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 5 Hebrew ↔ 6 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“Beth-arabah” occurs 2× in this single verse.
3 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 5 words in this verse.