Numbers 35:1-8

Cities for the Levites

1 The LORD spoke to Moses in ¹the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,

2 ²"Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasturelands around the cities.

3 The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasturelands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts.

4 The pasturelands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits^[a] all around.

5 And you shall measure, outside the city, on the east side two thousand cubits, and on the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle. This shall belong to them as pastureland for their cities.

6 "The cities that you give to the Levites shall be ³the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities.

7 All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be ⁴forty-eight, with their pasturelands.

8 And as for the cities that you shall give ⁵from the possession of the people of Israel, ⁶from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits, shall give of its cities to the Levites."

Numbers 35:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 35

Though the tribe of Levi had no part in the division of the land, yet cities out of the several tribes are here ordered to be given them to dwell in, to the number of forty eight, Nu 35:1-8, six of which were to be cities of refuge, Nu 35:9-15, but not for wilful murderers, in whatsoever way they might kill a man, Nu 35:16-21, but for such who had killed a man unawares, Nu 35:22-24, and several rules are given relating to such persons, Nu 35:25-29, but no satisfaction was to be taken in case of murder, nor to excuse a person's return to his own house before the death of the high priest, who had fled to a city of refuge, that so the land might not be defiled, Nu 35:30-34.

Cross References

• 1. See Numbers 22:1
• 2. Joshua 14:3, 4; Joshua 21:2; See Ezekiel 45:1-5; Ezekiel 48:8-14
• 3. ver. 13; Deuteronomy 4:41, 42; Joshua 20:2, 7, 8; Joshua 21:3, 13, 21, 27, 32, 36, 38
• 4. Joshua 21:41
• 5. Joshua 21:3
• 6. Numbers 26:54; Numbers 33:54

Footnotes

• [a]. A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters