Verse 29. - Iim. The Alexandrian version of LXX. has Ἀυείμ here. If this be correct, the city was named after the Avim (see note on Joshua 13:4). If we take the reading in the text we must interpret by ruins (see note on Ai, Joshua 7:2).
15:20-63 Here is a list of the cities of Judah. But we do not here find Bethlehem, afterwards the city of David, and ennobled by the birth of our Lord Jesus in it. That city, which, at the best, was but little among the thousands of Judah, Mic 5:2, except that it was thus honoured, was now so little as not to be accounted one of the cities.
Baalah,.... Baalah was given to the tribe of Simeon, Joshua 19:3; for Baalah is the same with Balah there, as it is with Bilba, 1 Chronicles 4:29; though according to the Jerusalem Talmud (i) it is the same with Baalah, given to the tribe of Dan, Joshua 19:44; and was one of those places whose houses were in Judah and their fields in Dan:
and Azem was also given to the tribe of Simeon, Joshua 19:3; it is the same with Ezem, 1 Chronicles 4:29,
and Iim, of which we read nowhere else.
(i) Hieros. Sanhedrin, fol. 18. 3.