Joshua 21:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and Holon with its suburbs, and Debir with its suburbs,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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חֹלֹן֙

Chôlôwn

H2473

“Holon”

Noun, Proper

Appears 3× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Joshua 15:51

Full BDB Definition

Origin: probably from H2344

TWOT: None

Holon = "sandy" - a town in the mountains of Judah given to the priests - a city of Moab; site unknown

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 →

8: words
4: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is חֹלֹן֙ Holon H2473 — appearing just 3 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

חֹלֹן֙ Holon H2473 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 nouns
4 particles

Repetition

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

מִגְרָשֶׁ֔הָ common land H4054 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 10 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 8 Hebrew tokens and 14 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 21:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 15:49 and Dannah, and Kiriath Sannah (the same is Debir),
Joshua 15:51 and Goshen, and Holon, and Giloh; eleven cities with their villages.
Joshua 12:13 the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;
1 Chronicles 6:58 and Hilen with its suburbs, Debir with its suburbs,

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 21:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְאֶת חֹלֹן֙ וְאֶת מִגְרָשֶׁ֔הָ וְאֶת דְּבִ֖ר וְאֶת מִגְרָשֶֽׁהָ

and Holon with its suburbs, and Debir with its suburbs,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 21:15 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ γελλα καί ὁ ἀποὁρίζω αὐτός καί ὁ δαβιρ καί ὁ ἀποὁρίζω αὐτός

and Gella and its suburbs; and Dabir and its suburbs;

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)

וְיַת חֹלֹן וְיַת רְוָחָהָא וְיַת דְבִיר וְיַת רְוָחָהָא:

(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 21:15 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

15. Holon] See ch. Jos_15:51; 1Ch_6:58.

Debir] See ch. Jos_15:15; Jos_15:49.

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 Holon with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos 15:51,

and Debir with her suburbs; See Gill on Jos 15:49.

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

Holon, called Hilen, 1Ch 6:58, as Juttah here is called Ashan, 1Ch 6:59, and Kibzaim called Jokmeam, 1Ch 6:68, and so some others, the names of the places being changed by length of time, and upon special occasions, as was frequent among the Jews; though their doctors add, that some of these places here mentioned, being now in the Canaanites’ possession, and not speedily recovered from them, there were others put in their stead.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword 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 8 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Chôlôwn (“Holon”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Chôlôwn carries the sense “Holon.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Joshua 15:51, which shares the word «Holon», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “common land” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
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?
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

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“common land” occurs 2× in this single verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.