³¹and at Beth-marcaboth, and Hazar-susim, and at Beth-biri, and at Shaaraim. These were their cities unto the reign of David. =31.= _Beth-marcaboth ... Hazar-susim_] perhaps royal chariot-cities, 1 Kings ix. 19. The names mean _House of chariots_ and _Court of horses_. _Shaaraim_] 1 Samuel xvii. 52. _These were their cities unto the reign of David_] either a reference to David’s census; or else it is implied that these cities ceased to belong to Simeon after David’s day. The clause breaks the connection of verses 31, 32; and is perhaps a late gloss. ³²And their villages were Etam, and Ain, Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five cities: =32.= _And their villages were Etam_] more probably =and their villages= (end of verse 31). =Etam=, etc. (continuing the list of cities as in verse 31). By _villages_ (_Ḥăṣērīm_) are meant small hamlets dependent on larger towns and generally unwalled (Leviticus xxv. 31). _Ain, Rimmon_] so also in the parallel passage, Joshua xix. 7; but certainly only one place is meant, _Ain-Rimmon_ (see the commentaries on Joshua xv. 42 and xix. 7). The number of the cities here ought therefore to be reckoned four, not five. ³³and all their villages that were round about the same cities, unto Baal. These were their habitations, and they have their genealogy. =33.= _unto Baal_] _Baal_ (“lord”) standing by itself is an unlikely name for a town. Read _Baalath-beer, Ramah of the South_ (“the mistress of the well, the high place of the South”), as in Joshua xix. 8. =34‒43.= THE HEROES OF SIMEON AND THEIR EXPLOITS. It seems probable that the exploits mentioned in these verses are derived from some old, though obscure, tradition, and are therefore of historical value for the movements of the tribe of Simeon. Apparently we are to understand that in the time of Hezekiah a band of the wild semi-nomadic tribe of Simeon made a successful raid upon a fertile valley near Gerar (a correction for _Gedor_, see verse 39), a township on the Philistine border, taking by surprise its peaceful population who were partly Canaanites, partly settlers who had come originally from a place _Maon_ (see verse 41). _Gedor_, the reading of the Hebrew text, was a town just north of Hebron. A raid by Simeonites on such a town is a startling, but not incredible, episode in Hezekiah’s time; but see also note on verse 40. Finally verses 42, 43 record a further assault by Simeonites, this time against Edomite territory. For full discussion see Hogg in _Encyclopedia Biblia_ iv. 4527 ff.; also Macalister, _Palestine Exploration Fund Statement_, 1905, 335 ff.