19:7

Ain, Rimmon, Ether, and Ashan—four cities, along with their villages: There is a textual issue in the first part of the word Rimmon (some versions have “En-rimmon”):

(1) En-rimmon is two towns: Ain and Rimmon. This is the way the vowels are written in the Masoretic text.

(Berean Standard Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, English Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Revised Edition, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, NET Bible, New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible, Good News Translation, King James Version)

(2) En-rimmon is one town. This is the reading of the Septuagint.

(Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version)

It is recommended that you follow option (1) along with the majority of English versions. This also agrees with the list of the same towns in Joshua 15:32.

The towns of Ain and Rimmon were in the southern part of Judah’s land. The towns of Ether and Ashan were farther north, in the Shephelah district.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

⌊They also received the towns of⌋ Ain, Rimmon, Ether, and Ashan. There were four towns with the villages that surrounded them.
-or-
Their land also included the towns of Ain, Rimmon, Ether and Ashan. The number of these towns was four towns with the villages that were near them.

© 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.