Ain is a name that mostly shows up in lists, and the lists are worth a glance. In Joshua 15 it sits among the southern towns of Judah, where “all the cities are twenty and nine, with their villages.” In Joshua 19 it appears again, this time in a short set of four cities. In Joshua 21 it is given with its suburbs to the Levites, who had no land of their own to farm. Numbers 34 uses it differently, as a landmark on the eastern edge of the promised land’s border.
4 verses
And the coast shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain; and the border shall descend, and shall reach unto the side of the sea of Chinnereth eastward:
And Lebaoth, and Shilhim, and Ain, and Rimmon: all the cities are twenty and nine, with their villages:
Ain, Remmon, and Ether, and Ashan; four cities and their villages:
And Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Bethshemesh with her suburbs; nine cities out of those two tribes.
William Smith, 1884
(spring, well).
(1.) One of the landmarks on the eastern boundary of Palestine. (Numbers 34:11) It is probably “Ain el-Azy , the main source of the Orontes.
(2.) One of the southernmost cities of Judah, (Joshua 15:32) afterwards allotted to Simeon, (Joshua 19:7; 1 Chronicles 4:32) and given to the priests. (Joshua 21:16)