Did Zorah and Eshtaol belong to Judah or to Dan?

Joshua describes the land being shared out in two stages. Judah received its lot first (Joshua 14–15). Later, at Shiloh, there were still “seven tribes, which had not yet received their inheritance” (18:2). The land that remained was surveyed and divided among them by lot, and Dan’s was the last lot of all (19:40). By then it was clear that Judah had been given more than it could use. Joshua says so plainly when it comes to Simeon: “the part of the children of Judah was too much for them”, so Simeon’s towns were taken from inside Judah’s portion (19:9). Dan’s share was made up in a similar way, from the north-western edge of Judah and the south of Ephraim. Zorah and Eshtaol, on that border, were among the towns handed over. Keil and Delitzsch and Gill explain the lists in this way.

So Joshua 15 records Judah’s first allotment, and Joshua 19 the change made at the second; the book itself tells the reader that the change took place. Joshua 15 does the same with Simeon. It lists Beer-sheba among Judah’s towns (15:28), and Beer-sheba appears again in Simeon’s inheritance (19:2). Later history fits. Samson’s family were Danites living at Zorah (Judges 13:2), and the Danites sent out spies “from Zorah, and from Eshtaol” (Judges 18:2). After many Danites moved north, families of Judah lived there too (1 Chronicles 2:53), and Rehoboam fortified Zorah as one of the cities of Judah and Benjamin (2 Chronicles 11:10).