Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 34:5
And the border shall fetch a compass from Azmon unto the river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea.
5. the brook of Egypt ] Heb. ‘the naal of Miraim.’ A.V. ‘the river of Egypt’ gives the erroneous impression that the Nile is meant. The name is that of a wady or torrent, now called Wdy el-‘Arsh, which rises in the centre of the Sinaitic peninsula, and flows northward into the Mediterranean about 50 miles S.W. of Gaza. It is possible that Miraim here denotes not Egypt proper, but the tract on the east of Egypt. The name Muur is frequently applied to the latter in Assyrian inscriptions.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 5. The river of Egypt] The eastern branch of the river Nile; or, according to others, a river which is south of the land of the Philistines, and fails into the gulf or bay near Calieh.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The river of Egypt, called Sihor, Jos 13:3, which divided Egypt from Canaan. See Gen 15:18.
The sea; the midland sea, called the sea emphatically; whereas the other seas there, as they are called, are indeed but lakes.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. river of Egyptthe ancientbrook Sihor, the Rhinocolura of the Greeks, a little to the south ofEl-Arish, where this wady gently descends towards the Mediterranean(Jos 13:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the border shall fetch a compass,…. Not go on in a straight line, but turn about:
from Azmon unto the river of Egypt; the river Nile, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem; but Aben Ezra seems to deny that that river is meant: and some think that Rhinocolura, which flows into the Mediterranean sea, is meant; or the “valley of Egypt”, Casiotis, which divided Judea from Egypt, as follows:
and the goings out of it; not of the river, but of the border:
shall be at the sea; the above sea, called in the next verse the great sea; all the Targums render it to the west.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(5) And the border shall fetch a compass . . . Although the exact spots of some of the places which determined the southern border have not been positively ascertained, there seems, on the whole, very little doubt that the boundary line ran along the valleys which form a natural division between the cultivated land and the desert, from the Arabah on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, the Brook of Egypti.e., the Wady-el-Arishforming the western boundary until it reached the sea.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
river. Hebrew. nachal, a wady; not nahar, a river. Here used of “Sihor”, and called the river of Egypt. Compare Gen 15:18, where it is nahar = the Nile.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
the river: Gen 15:18, Jos 15:4, Jos 15:47, 1Ki 8:65, Isa 27:12
the sea: Num 34:6, Num 34:7
Reciprocal: 2Ki 24:7 – from the river 1Ch 13:5 – Shihor 2Ch 7:8 – from the entering Eze 48:28 – the river
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
34:5 And the border shall fetch a compass from Azmon unto the {b} river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea.
(b) Which was Nilus, or as some think Rhinocotura.