9:17a

So: The Hebrew connector that the Berean Standard Bible translates as So introduces the next event in the narrative.

the Israelites set out: The clause the Israelites set out indicates that the Israelites left their camp to walk to where the Gibeonites lived and to confront them.

and on the third day: In Hebrew, part of a day was counted as one day when reckoning time. For example, if they started to walk on a Thursday, then they probably arrived on a Saturday. Translate this time reference in a natural way in your language.

arrived at their cities: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as arrived at means “reached.”

their cities: The Gibeonites lived in a group of at least four towns. These towns are named in the next part of this verse.

9:17b

Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim: In some languages it may be clearer to make it explicit that these are names of towns. For example:

⌊the names of⌋ their towns were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.