Numbers 35:5

5 Measure 3,000 feet outward from the city wall to the east, south, west and north, with the city in the center. The space between the 1,500-foot line and the 3,000-foot line will be their open land around the cities.

Numbers 35:5 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 35:5

And ye shall measure from without the city on the east side
two thousand cubits
Before only 1000 cubits were ordered to be

measured, and now 2000, even 2000 more, which were to be added to the other, and to begin where they ended. The first 1000 were for their cattle and goods, these 2000 for their gardens, orchards, fields, and vineyards; and so the Jewish writers understand it. Jarchi observes, that 1000 cubits are ordered, and after that 2000; and asks, how is this? or how is it to be reconciled? to which he answers, 2000 are put to them round about, and of them the 1000 innermost are for suburbs, and the outermost (i.e. the 2000) are for fields and vineyards; and with this agrees the Misnah ^F1, from whence he seems to have taken it; and the same was to be on every other side of the city, south, west, and north, as follows:

and on the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two
thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits;
which, added to the other 1000 all around, must make a large circumference of land:

and the city shall be in the midst;
in the midst of the circuit of three thousand cubits all around, so that it must stand very pleasant and convenient:

this shall be to them the suburbs of the cities;
such a quantity of ground, consisting of so many cubits, shall be assigned to every city; the suburbs or glebe land to a Levite's city, on the four sides were four squares, and each square consisted of seventy six acres, one rood, twenty perches, and eighty square feet; all the four squares amounting to three hundred and five acres, two roods, one perch, besides fifty seven feet square, according to Bishop Cumberland.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 Sotah, c. 5. sect. 3. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

Numbers 35:5 In-Context

3 They are to have the cities to live in, while their open land will be for their livestock, for growing crops and for all their animals.

4 The open land around the cities you give to the L'vi'im is to commence at a line drawn around the city wall 1,500 feet outside it and is to extend outward from there.

5 Measure 3,000 feet outward from the city wall to the east, south, west and north, with the city in the center. The space between the 1,500-foot line and the 3,000-foot line will be their open land around the cities.

6 The cities you give to the L'vi'im are to be the six cities of refuge to which you permit the person who kills someone to flee to; plus an additional forty-two cities.

7 Thus you will give the L'vi'im forty-eight cities, with their surrounding open land.