Numbers 34:8

Num 34:8 From mount Hor ye shall point out [your border] unto the entrance of Hamath; and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad:

Ver. 8. Unto the entrance of Hamath.] Called Hamath the great, {Amo 6:2} affecting haply to be held the greatest village, as the Hague in Holland doth, and remains therefore unwalled.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

entrance of Hamath--The northern plain between those mountain ranges, now the valley of Balbeck (see on Num 13:21).

Zedad--identified as the present Sudud (Eze 47:15).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(8) From Mount Hor . . . —From Mount Hor the boundary line was to pass the unknown Ziphron to the village of Enan, or Hazar-enan, which is likewise unknown. (Comp. Eze_47:16-18.) This line probably crossed the northern portion of the Lebanon.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

From Mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath,.... Antiochia, as Jarchi; or rather Epiphania, as Jerom (r); the former being described by Hemath the great, Amo 6:2, this entrance was a narrow pass leading from the land of Canaan to Syria, through the valley which lies between Lebanon and Antilibanus:

and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad; the same boundary as here is given in Eze 47:15.

(r) Comment. in Ezek. 47. 16.

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

Emath. It is of great importance to fix the situation of this city. Some take it to be Antioch, the capital of Syria, on the Orontes. But that was a modern city, founded by Nicanor, and called after his father, Antiochus, and embellished by Callinicus and Epiphanes. (Strabo xvi.) --- Others believe it is Epiphania, at the foot of Libanus, on the same river, and a distinct city from Emath Rabba, or "the great," of Amos vi. 2. Josephus [Antiquities?] i. 7, (Calmet) and St. Jerome (in Isaias x.) seem to be of this opinion. (Menochius) --- But the city in question was most probably Emesa, of which Amos speaks above. It was also upon the river Orontes, at a small distance to the east of Libanus, on the road to Damascus. This road was the northern boundary. Emesa was perhaps formerly the capital of the country of Soba, (2 Paralipomenon viii. 3,) and was taken by Solomon. Reblatha, or Rebla, (ver. 11,) was a part of its territory. (Theodoret in Jer. xxxix. 5.) (Calmet)

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).

Hamath, called Hamath the great, Amo 6:2, which is among the northern borders, Eze 47:16,17. See Gen 10:15,18; Num 13:21; Jdg 3:3; 1Ki 8:65.

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

From Mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath. Literally, "from Mount Hor point out (WatT, as in the previous verse) to come to Hamath," which seems to mean, "from Mount Hor strike a line for the entrance to Hamath." The real difficulty lies in the expression tmj aobl, which the Septuagint renders eisporeuomen on eiv Emay , "as men enter into Hamath." The same expression occurs in Num_13:21, and is similarly rendered by the Septuagint. A comparison with Jud_1:3:3 and other passages will show that "Ibo Chamath" had a definite geographical meaning as the accepted name of a locality in the extreme north of Canaan. When we come to inquire where "the entrance to Hamath" was, we have nothing to guide us except the natural features of the country. Hamath itself, afterwards Epiphancia on the Orontes, lay far beyond the extremest range of Jewish settlement; nor does it appear that it was ever conquered by the greatest of the Jewish kings. The Hamath in which Solomon built store cities, (2Ch_8:4) and the Hamath which Jeroboam II "recovered" for Israel, (2Ki_14:28) was not the city, but the kingdom (or part of the kingdom), of that name. We do not know how far south the territory of Hamath may have extended, but it is quite likely that it included at times the whole upper valley of the Leontes (now the Litany). The "entrance to Hamath" then must be looked for at some point, distinctly marked by the natural features of the country, where the traveler from Palestine would enter the territory of Hamath. This point has been usually fixed at the pass through which the Orontes breaks out of its upper valley between Lebanon and anti-Lebanon into the open plain of Hamath. This point, however, is more than sixty miles north of Damascus (which confessedly never belonged to Israel), and nearly a hundred miles north-north-west from Dan. It would require some amount of positive evidence to make it even probable that the whole of the long and narrow valley between Lebanon and anti-Lebanon, widening towards the north, and separated by mountainous and difficult country from the actual settlements of the Jews, was yet Divinely designated as part of their inheritance. No such positive evidence exists, and therefore we are perfectly free to look for "the entrance to Hamath" much further to the south. It is evident that the ordinary road from the land of Canaan or from the cities of Phoenicia to Hamath must have struck the valley of the Leontes, have ascended that river to its sources, and crossed the watershed to the upper stream of Orontes. The whole of this road, until it reached the pass already spoken of leading down to the Emesa of after days, and so to Hamath, lay through a narrow valley of which the narrowest part is at the southern end of the modern district of el Bekaa, almost in a straight line between Sidon and Mount Hermon. Here the two ranges approach most nearly to the bed of the Litany (Leontes), forming a natural gate by which the traveler to Hamath must needs have entered from the south. Here then, very nearly in lat. 88 80", we may reasonably place the "entrance to Hamath" so often spoken of, and so escape the necessity of imagining an artificial and impracticable frontier for the northern boundary of the promised land. Zedad. Identified by some with the present village of Sadad or Sudad, to the south-east of Emesa (Hums); but this identification, which is at best very problematic, is wholly out of the question if the argument of the preceding note be accepted.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

מהר ההר FROM MOUNT HOR you shall turn about and go along the northern boundary towards the eastern side and you will arrive at the “Entrance to Hamath”, which is Antioch.

תוצאות הגבול means, THE END OF THE BOUNDARY. In every passage where it is said "the end of the boundary”, either the boundary ends there entirely, not passing further on at all (cf. Rashi on v. 5), or from there it spreads and widens, projecting from the straight line backwards to extend itself further on in a more slanting direction than the first widening. And relative to the measurement of the first breadth it calls it תוצאות (the goings forth, the endings), because there that measurement ends.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.