Joshua 15:4

The river of Egypt (see above, Joshua 13:3 ). "Westward, as far as Egypt, there is a sandy, salt, barren, unfruitful, and uninhabitable waste" (Knobel). The land, he adds, is better near Gaza, but near the sea it is still pure waste. And the goings out of that coast were at the sea. The word coast, derived through the French from the Latin costa, signifies, like it, a side. It is now used only of the border formed by the sea, but at an earlier period it had a wider signification. The Hebrew word is translated "border" in Joshua 15:1 . The meaning is that the boundary line of Judah ran as far as the sea. This shall be your south coast. Or, this shall be to you the southern bound ary. The historian here quotes the directions given to Moses in Numbers 34:1-29 ; with the evident intention of pointing out that the south border of the children of Israel coincided with that of the tribe of Judah.