Ziklag] 1 Samuel xxvii. 6. The site is not certainly identified.
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.