StrongerBible

kesil

כְּסִיל

HebrewH3686Proper NounChesil

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Jos 15:30
Word studyResearch-gradekeh-SEELproper noun

What kesil means

Chesil: a town in the far south of Judah, named once in the roll of Judah's towns and called Bethul in the parallel list

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

The name turns up once, in the long roll of towns that Joshua's account assigns to the tribe of Judah. Judah's share reached down into the dry country in the far south, and the writer simply reels the settlements off one after another: Eltolad, Chesil, Hormah. Nothing at all is said about the place. No story happens there, nobody is described as coming from there, and the name is never used again.

What makes Chesil interesting is what the other lists call it. A few chapters later Joshua goes back over these same southern towns, this time as the share carved out for the tribe of Simeon inside Judah's territory, and the run of names is identical except for this one: Eltolad, Bethul (בְּתוּל), Hormah. The Chronicler covers the same ground again and writes Bethuel (בְּתוּאֵל). The old Greek translation of Joshua puts a fourth form in the slot, Bethel. One town seems to stand behind all of them, and Chesil is the form that matches none of the others.

The spelling is also why the name gets a dictionary entry of its own. Written out in Hebrew it is exactly the everyday word for a thick-headed fool (כְּסִיל), and exactly the word used for the constellation we call Orion (כְּסִיל). Whether the town's name has anything to do with either is unknown. The reference works list the place on its own and make no attempt to derive it, and nothing in the verse hints at a joke or at a meaning behind the name.

Where the town stood is not known. The names around it in the list belong to the arid south, so the general stretch of country is clear enough, but no ruin has been matched to it with any confidence.

Jos 15:30

What scholars say about kesil

The single occurrence stands in the Negev district of the Judahite town list (Joshua 15:21-32), where the sequence reads Eltolad, Chesil, Hormah. The parallel Simeonite list (Joshua 19:2-8) gives בְּתוּל in the same position, 1 Chronicles 4:28-33 gives בְּתוּאֵל, and the Greek tradition of Joshua 15:30 reads Βαιθηλ. BDB, s.v. כסיל, equates the form with בְּתוּל, and HALOT likewise flags the reading against the parallels, so the separate concordance number reflects lexicographic convention for a toponym rather than an independent lexeme related either to the wisdom term for a fool or to the astronomical term. Historical geographers treat the Negev lists of Joshua 15 and 19 together with 1 Chronicles 4 as recensions of one administrative document, which accounts for the shared sequence of names alongside a divergent form in a single slot; see Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, and Zecharia Kallai, Historical Geography of the Bible. No site has been securely identified. Proposals generally proceed from the equation with Bethul and Bethuel, and sometimes from the Bethel of the Negev in 1 Samuel 30:27, and none has won consensus.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. כסילlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. כסילlexicon
  • Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979)reference
  • Zecharia Kallai, Historical Geography of the Bible: The Tribal Territories of Israel (Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1986)reference
  • Trent C. Butler, Joshua (Word Biblical Commentary 7; Waco: Word, 1983)commentary
  • The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), s.v. "Chesil"reference

All attested forms of כְּסִיל

noun

כְסִיל

Jos 15:30