What is the context?
The remaining groups name hill-country settlements, including Hebron, and then towns in the wilderness near the Salt Sea. Repeated references to villages show that the inheritance concerns the surrounding communities as well as the principal towns.
The final verse explicitly says Judah could not drive out the Jebusites in Jerusalem and that they continued to live among Judah. This qualification stands within the allotment record itself.
The chapter therefore combines a substantial assigned inheritance with incomplete occupation. The account neither cancels the preceding gift nor allows a reader to claim that the conquest summaries mean no resistant population remained anywhere.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The USCCB notes identify the wilderness district near the Dead Sea and connect the Jebusite notice with Judges 1 and 2 Samuel 5. Wesley proposes stages in Jerusalem’s capture to relate those accounts. That reconstruction should be distinguished from the explicit notice here; it does not establish every stage or the date of every sentence in the book.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.
Where can I study this further?
No deeper study linked yet.