(44) Of the nine towns in Joshua 15:42-44, Conder identifies five.

Verse 44. - Mareshah. One of Rehoboam's fortified cities (2 Chronicles 11:8). Here Asa met Zerah the Ethiopian, or Cushite, and overthrew him (2 Chronicles 14:9). Here lived the prophet who foretold the destruction of Jehoshaphat's navy (2 Chronicles 20:37. See also Micah 1:15). How Marash, close to Beit-Jibrin or Eleutheropolis (Tristram, Conder). If it be the same as Moresheth-Gath in Micah 1:14, this adds additional probability to the identification of Gath with Beit-Jibrin (see note on Joshua 13:3).

15:20-63 Here is a list of the cities of Judah. But we do not here find Bethlehem, afterwards the city of David, and ennobled by the birth of our Lord Jesus in it. That city, which, at the best, was but little among the thousands of Judah, Mic 5:2, except that it was thus honoured, was now so little as not to be accounted one of the cities.And Keilah,.... The first of these is a well known city, which David saved from the hands of the Philistines, 1 Samuel 23:1, &c. In Jerom's time it was a little village to the east of Eleutheropolis, about eight miles from it, as you go to Hebron; in which was shown the sepulchre of the Prophet Habakkuk (b).

And Achzib is said to be on the borders of Asher, Joshua 19:29, and is supposed the same with Chezib, Genesis 38:5; and the Ecdippa of Josephus and others, and now called Zib; See Gill on Micah 1:14,

and Mareshah; Jerom says (c), only the ruins of it were to be seen two miles from Eleutheropolis:

nine cities with their villages; which is just their number.

(b) De loc. Heb. fol. 90. A. (c) lbid. fol. 93. E.