What Does 1 Chronicles 7:28 Mean?

**THE BOUNDS OF EPHRAIM AND WEST MANASSEH** (1Chronicles 7:28-29). Comp. 1Chronicles 6:54, sqq., where a list of the cities of the Levites is similarly added to their tribal registers. (28) **And their possessions.**—Heb., *and their* *domain and their seats were Bethel and her daughters;* “their domain,” that is, the domain of both divisions of the tribe of Joseph. **Bethel**—originally assigned to Benjamin (Joshua 18:22), belonged later to the northern kingdom. The present list appears therefore to be younger than the disruption of Solomon’s empire. **Naaran,** or Naarah (*Naapá*) (Joshua 16:7) was a town north-east of Jericho. Gezer lay on the southwest border of Ephraim (Joshua 16:3), Shechem (*Nablûs, *Νεάπολις) on the north. *Gaza:* so the LXX„ Vulg. (Aza which represents the Hebrew *‘Azzāh, i.e.,* Gaza), and Targum; but a great number of MSS. and seventeen editions read Ayyah, a place not mentioned elsewhere, but doubtless lying on the north-west border of Ephraim. (29) **And by the borders of the children of Manasseh.**—Literally, *and upon the hands of the* sons of Manasseh, a favourite phrase with the chronicler, occurring nine times in Chronicles and once in Ezra. (See Note on 1Chronicles 6:31.) The four cities lay within the territory of Issachar and Asher, but were assigned to Manassen (Joshua 17:11). They mark the northward marches of the two houses of Joseph, as the cities of 1Chronicles 7:28 mark the southward. They long withstood the Israelite occupation (Joshua 17:12-16; see also Judges 5:19. “Then fought the kings of Canaan, in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo.”)