Q. How many cities were given to the children of Simeon for their inheritance? My English Standard Version translation, in Joshua 19:2-6, lists (by count) 14 cities – Beersheba, Sheba, Moladah, Hazar-shual, Balah, Ezem, Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah, Ziklag, Beth-marcaboth, Hazar-susah, Beth-lebaoth, and Sharuhen – but then says “thirteen cities with their villages.”
A. A number of Bible versions have this error.[i] The King James translation of verse two is “Beer-sheba, or Sheba, and Moladah…”[ii] Read Joshua 19:1-8. “Beer-sheba, or Sheba” provides the explanation – that is, giving two names by which one city is called. If Beersheba and Sheba refer to the same city, then the number of cities named agree with the number given, thirteen. The parallel record in 1 Chronicles 4:28-31 harmonizes with this conclusion, simply leaving the word “Sheba” out of the list.
The Barker 1611 printing of the new translation now called the “King James Version” has the word “or” between “Beer-sheba” and “Sheba.”
In his commentary, John Gill writes:
…Beersheba, that is, Sheba; for so the particle ‘vau’ is sometimes used (z), and must be so used here; or otherwise, instead of thirteen, it will appear that there are fourteen cities, contrary to the account of them, Joshua 19:6; so Kimchi and Ben Melech make them one city. And it may be observed, that in the enumeration of the cities of Simeon, 1 Chronicles 4:28, Sheba is left out, and only Beersheba is mentioned…
(z) Vid. Noldium, p. 280. No. 1200.[iii]
[ii] Even some King James Bibles have a printing error here, with “Beer-sheba, and Sheba, and Moladah” instead of “Beer-sheba, or Sheba, and Moladah.”
[iii] Possibly a reference to: Loca Concordantia, cum uniuscujusque Radicis Latina Interpretatione, secundum Robertsonum, Buxtorfium, Marium de Calassio et Noldium, by Edward Griffith.
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