Joshua 19:3

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and Hazar Shual, and Balah, and Ezem,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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וּבָלָ֖ה

Bâlâh

H1088

“and · Balah”

Conjunction + Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: feminine of H1087

TWOT: None

Balah = "waxed old" - a place in Simeon

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 →

4: words
3: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

1 hapax legomenon — a word that appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

וּבָלָ֖ה Balah H1088

First appearance in Scripture

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

וּבָלָ֖ה Balah H1088

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וָעָֽצֶם Azem H6107 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 nouns

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַחֲצַ֥ר Hazar-shual H2705 ×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 4 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 19:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 15:28–29 and Hazar Shual, and Beersheba, and Biziothiah,

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 19:3 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַחֲצַ֥ר שׁוּעָ֛ל וּבָלָ֖ה וָעָֽצֶם

and Hazar Shual, and Balah, and Ezem,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 19:3 Septuagint · lemma form

καί αρσωλα καί βωλα καί ασομ

and Arsola, and Bola, and Jason,

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)

וַחֲצַר שׁוּעָל וּבָלָה וְעֶצֶם:

(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 19:3 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 3. Hazar-shual] For this and several of the following places, See Clarke on Jos 15:32.

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

3. 3. Hazar-shual] Between Beer-sheba and Hazar-gaddah; see 1Ch_4:28; 4. Balah, see ch. Jos_15:29; in 1Ch_4:29 it is called Bilhah; 5. Azem, elsewhere called Ezem, 1Ch_4:29;

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 Hazarshual,.... See Gill on Jos 15:28,

and Balah, and Azem; of these places see Gill on Jos 15:29; for Balah is the same with Baalah there, and with Bilhah Ch1 4:29; and Azem with Ezem there.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Balah, called also Bilhah, 1Ch 4:29; and Baalah, Jos 15:29. For let this be observed, once for all, that the names of persons or places are frequently changed through length of time, or difference of dialects, or study of brevity and easiness in pronunciation, or new accidents, or other causes. Thus Eltolad and Bethul, Jos 19:4 are called Tokad and Bethstel, 1Ch 4:29,30; and for

Beth-lebaoth, Jos 19:6, is Beth-birei, 1Ch 4:31.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Hazar-shual. The "hamlet of jackals." The word Hazar is translated "village" in our version. (see note on Jos_15:32) So also with Hazar-susah or Hazar-susim, "the hamlet of horses" (1Ch_4:31) below.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — 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 4 words (3 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Bâlâh (“Balah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Balah” (Bâlâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
1 word here appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Why might the author reach for such rare wording?
This is the first place “Balah” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Joshua 15:29, which shares the word «Azem», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “Hazar-shual” (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 Adam Clarke's Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 4 Hebrew ↔ 6 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“Hazar-shual” occurs 2× in this single verse.