This expression shows that the whole preceding paragraph, from the 13th verse through the 19th, is parenthetical. The territory assigned to Judah was about 45 mi. long and 50 broad, of varied character and of great natural strength. It comprised four distinct regions:

 (1) the Negeb, or the south, the “dry” land, which lay between the central hills and the desert;

 (2) the low-lying hills, usually called the Shephelah—the strip of country between the central mountains and the sandy shore of the Mediterranean;

 (3) the mountains, which rose in the Negeb below Hebron and extended north to Jerusalem, being bounded on the east by the wilderness of the Dead Sea, and on the west by the Shephelah;

 (4) the desolate Wilderness of Judah or “hill country.”