Joshua 12:23

The king of Dor - The city of this name fell to the lot of the children of Manasseh, Joshua 17:11. Bochart observes that it was one of the oldest royal cities in Phoenicia. The Canaanites held it, Judges 1:27. Antiochus Sydetes besieged it in aftertimes, but could not make himself master of it. See Bochart, Canaan, lib. i., c. 28, and Dodd.

The king of the nations of Gilgal - This is supposed to mean the higher Galilee, surnamed Galilee of the Gentiles or, nations, as the Hebrew word גוים goyim means. On this ground it should be read king of Galilee of the nations. Others suppose it is the same country with that of which Tidal was king, see Genesis 14:1. The place is very uncertain, and commentators have rendered it more so by their conjectures.

The king of the nations - See Genesis 14:1 and note. It means king of certain mixed and probably nomadic tribes, which regarded Gilgal Joshua 9:19 as their center and capital.

12:23 King of Gilgal - Not of that Gilgal where Joshua first lodged after his passage over Jordan; where it doth not appear, that there was either king or city; but of a city of the same name, probably in Galilee towards the sea, where divers people might possibly resort for trade and merchandise, over whom this was a king, as formerly Tidal seems to have been, Genesis 14:1.