Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they struck them, and chased them to great Sidon, and to Misrephoth Maim, and to the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they struck them, until they left them none remaining.
and unto Misrephothmaim, or "boilings of water", it seems as if it was a place of hot baths, but the Targum renders it "pits of water", which Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech say, were pits into which the salt waters of the sea were drawn, and where they were heated by the sun, and made salt of; and so it is thought this was a place of salt pits, where salt was boiled, either by the heat of the sun or by fire q: Junius and Tremellius render the word by "glass furnaces", furnaces in which glass was made; and it is certain, that at Sidon, and near it, within the borders of which this place was, Joshua 13:6; glass was made: Pliny r calls Sidon the artificer of glass, or a city where glass was made: and Strabo says s, that between Ace and Tyre is a shore which bears glassy sand, but they say it is not melted there, but carried to Sidon to be melted; and some say the Sidonians have a glassy sand fit for melting: Calmet t thinks this place is the same with Sarepta, Luke 4:26; which had its name from melting: of what construction the furnaces were in this place cannot be said, no doubt great improvement has been since made u: