Ziph] in south Judah, 1 Samuel xxiii. 15. Ziphah, a feminine form of the same name.
¹⁷And the sons of Ezrah; Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon: and she bare Miriam, and Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa.
17. and Jalon: and she bare Miriam] As the text stands she has no antecedent. It has therefore been proposed to transfer from verse 18 the words And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took, and put them after Jalon. Bithiah then appears as the mother of Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah, and the difficulty of the absence of her sons’ names from verse 18 disappears. For father of Eshtemoa see ii. 24 note, and for Eshtemoa see Joshua xxi. 14.
¹⁸And his wife the Jewess[¹] bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took.
[¹] Or, Hajehudijah.
18. his wife] the wife of Mered, if the transposition mentioned in the last note be accepted.
his wife the Jewess] so called in contrast to his Egyptian wife.
Gedor] compare verse 4, where a different person is perhaps by a different tradition called father of Gedor. Gedor is to be identified with the ruins of Jedur on the road between Jerusalem and Hebron, compare verse 39.
Soco ... Zanoah] The Soco (Joshua xv. 48) and Zanoah (Joshua xv. 56) here mentioned were situated to the south-west of Hebron. They are to be distinguished from a Soco near the valley of Elah (Joshua xv. 35, 2 Chronicles xi. 7, xxviii. 18) and Zanoah near Beth-shemesh (Joshua xv. 34).
these are the sons of Bithiah] See note on verse 17. A “daughter of Pharaoh” is somewhat strange in such surroundings. For an interesting emendation and interpretation, see Macalister, Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement, 1905, p. 252.