2 Samuel 24:7

Tyre (comp. Joshua 19:29 ). Tyre and the whole coast land between it and Sidon had been too strong for the tribe of Asher, and remained unsubdued. But, like the independent states in India, it acknowlodged the supremacy of the paramount power. The cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites. It is evident from this that even in David's time there were towns and districts were Hivites and Canaanites dwelt as distinct communities, governed probably by their own laws. But as they were bound to serve in the Israelite armies, they were included in the census, and possibly one of its rosin objects was to learn the number of fighting men of alien races dwelling in Israel. They seem to have been reckoned as belonging to the tribe in whose borders they dwelt. So Baanah and Rechab, the murderers of Ishbosheth, though Beerothites (and therefore Gibeonites, who again were Hivites), were counted to Benjamin ( 2 Samuel 4:2 ). These Gentile communities were chiefly to be found in the north, for which reason it was called "the circuit ( Gelil ) of the nations" ( Isaiah 9:1 ), and in later times from Gelil came the name Galilee. The Syriac adds "Jebusites," and we find Jerusalem occupied by a community of Jebusites living in independence in the very neighbourhood of the warlike tribe of Benjamin ( 2 Samuel 5:6 ). This numbering of the aborigines by David is referred to in 2 Chronicles 2:17 , where it is added that Solomon made a separate census of them, and found that there were in Israel no fewer than a hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred of these aliens.