Joshua 13:5

And the land of the Giblites,.... This was another country that remained unconquered; the Greeks call it Byblus, and near to which Pliny (e) speaks of a place called Gabale, and is now called Gibyle;

And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath. The land of the Giblites.

The Gibites; a people dwelling near Sidon in Gebal, of which see .

Joshua 13:5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.Ver. 5. And the land of the Giblites.] Called Gebal in Psalms 83:7 Ezekiel 27:9. Enemies to the Church.

XIII. OF THE TO BE DIVIDED (Joshua 13:1-14). (b) According to its boundaries. (1) Joshua was old and stricken in years.—Rather, he had aged, and was advanced in days. Old is too absolute a word. He did not live beyond a hundred and ten years (Joshua 24:29), and this was not a great age for the time. But in several instances the Hebrew word here employed is used not so much in respect of the number of years men lived, but rather in regard to the weakening of the vital powers. So it is said in Genesis 27, “Isaac was old,” i.e., he had aged, for he lived forty-three years after that. So in regard to David, “the king was very old,” i.e., much aged, in 1 Kings 1:15, for he could not have been more than seventy when he died. The hardships and anxieties of his life had aged him. So it was perhaps with Joshua. Moses was a signal exception; he had not aged at one hundred and twenty. But Jehovah constantly talked with Moses, and knew him face to face; and may we not say that that heavenly intercourse even sustained the vital powers? The work of the Lord, though it be successfully carried on, as it was by Joshua, may wear men out by its very excitement. But personal intercourse with Him is like eating of the tree of life, and “in His presence is the fulness of joy.” In this personal intercourse Moses was more highly favoured than his successor, Joshua. (1, 7) There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed . . . Now therefore divide this land.—The land had still to be inherited—i.e., not overrun, or conquered, as far as it could be said to be conquered by defeating the armies that took the field; all this was done already, but the land had not passed out of the hands of its actual possessors into the hands of Israel. It is remarkable that we have here a distinct order given to Joshua to divide to Israel land which was not yet conquered. In these verses several nations are named—viz., the Philistines, the Geshurites, the Avites, the Giblites, the Sidonians, besides anything more which may be included in the sometimes generic, and sometimes more specific, name of the Canaanites. Of these tribes, the Philistines and “all the Sidonians” (or Phœnicians) were certainly not yet conquered. Can we say that they were ever conquered at any period in the history of the kingdom of all Israel, except in so far as they were reduced to the condition of tributaries?

Verse 5. The land of the Giblites] This people dwelt beyond the precincts of the land of Canaan, on the east of Tyre and Sidon. See Ezekiel 27:9; Psalms 83:7; their capital was named Gebal. See Dodd. All Lebanon] See Clarke on Joshua 11:17.

5. the land of the Giblites] i.e. the land of the inhabitants of Gebal, a name which occurs in Psalms 83:7, “Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; The Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;” and Ezekiel 27:8-9, “The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers.” It was a maritime town of Phœnicia. Its inhabitants are written “Giblians” in the Vulgate, and “Byblians” in the LXX. (while in 1 Kings 5:18 the word is rendered “stone-squarers”), whence we may infer the identity of the city with the Byblus of classical literature. Byblus was a seat of the worship of Adonis or Syrian Tammuz. The modern name is Jebail, about 22 miles north of Beyrout. The coins of Byblus have frequently the type of Astarte, also of Isis, who came here in search of the body of Osiris. “At Jebail and in other ancient Phœnician cities there are traces of the same large bevelled stones clamped with iron, which appear in the foundations of Solomon’s temple. These are probably the work of the Giblites.” See Ritter’s Geog. Pal. II. 214, 215. all Lebanon, toward the sunrising] i.e. Anti-Lebanon. from Baal-gad] See above, note on Joshua 11:17. the entering into Hamath] The extreme northern boundary point of Palestine whither the spies originally penetrated (Numbers 13:21), and to which the kingdom of David and Solomon once actually extended (2 Samuel 8:3-12; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 1 Chronicles 18:3-11; 2 Chronicles 8:3-4). In the time of the Crusades it was called Epiphaneia, a town situated on the western bank of the Orontes, lower down the stream than Emesa. It is called “Hamath the Great” (Amos 6:2), and commanded the whole of the Orontes valley, from the low screen of hills which forms the watershed between the Orontes and the Litâny—“the entrance of Hamath”—to the defile of Daphne below Antioch.

Giblites - The people of Gebal (“Jebail”, 22 miles north of Beyronut). They were “stone-squarers” 1 Kings 5:18 and (ship) “caulkers” Ezekiel 27:9.

[5. Giblites — Inhabitants of Gebal, the Gyblos of the Greeks, the modern Jebail, situated on the seacoast at the foot of the northern slopes of Lebanon, and about seventeen miles north of Beyroot.