Joshua 19:41
And the coast of their inheritance was Zorah, and Eshtaol, and Irshemesh,
And the coast of their inheritance was Zorah, and Eshtaol,.... The tribe of Dan is not described by places the boundaries of it, as other tribes, but by its cities, which were chiefly, at least several of them, taken out of the tribe of Judah, as the two first of these most manifestly were; See Gill on "Joshua 15:33";
and Irshemesh signifies the city of the sun, as the Targum interprets it, and was so called very probably from a temple in it, dedicated to the idolatrous worship of the sun, but a different place from Bethshemesh in other tribes; though those of that name, as this, had it for the like reason; and so Heliopolis, in Egypt, which signifies the same, where was a temple of the same kind; as there was another city of this name, between the mountains of Libanus and Antilibanus, now called Balbec {p}, where the ruins of the temple are yet to be seen: but this was a different place, the Septuagint version calls it Sammaus, and it was, according to Jerom {q}, the same with Emmaus, afterwards called Nicopolis; which, if the same Emmaus with that in Luke 24:13; though some doubt it, was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, or seven miles and a half.
{p} See Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 120, 138.
{q} Comment. in Ezek. xlviii. fol. 263. A.