a desert · preposition + proper noun, a place name
Moab
מוֹאָ֑בmo.'Av
H4124
Moab · proper noun, a place name
Jordan
יַרְדֵּ֥ןyar.Den
H3383
Jarden · proper noun, a place name
Jericho
יְרֵח֖וֹye.re.Cho
H3405
Jericho or Jerecho · proper noun, a place name
saying
לֵאמֹֽרle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 22:1 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
Numbers 26:63 These are they that were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who numbered the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by Jordan near…
Numbers 31:12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of…
Numbers 33:50 And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,
Numbers 36:13 These are the commandments and the judgments, which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moa…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
John Gill on Numbers 35:1
And the Lord spake to Moses,.... After he had described the borders of the land, and given instructions about the division of it among the several tribes, and named the persons that should be concerned in parting and putting it into the possession of the Israelites, he makes a provision for the Levites; for though they had no inheritance in the land as a tribe, yet it was proper they should have cities and houses to dwell in; for it would not be suitable that they should be always about the tabernacle, as they were in the wilderness; and it is concerning this the Lord is said to speak to Moses:
in the plains of Moab by Jordan, near Jericho: where the Israelites now were, and had been for so…
Numbers 35:1-8
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,
1. Et loquutus est Jehova in campestribus Moab juxta Jordanem. Jericho, dicendo:
2. Command the children of Israel, that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in; and ye shall give also unto the Levites suburbs for the cities round about them.
2. Praecipe filiis Israel ut dent Levitis de haereditate possessionis suae urbes ad habitandum, et suburbana urbium ipsarum, per circuitus earum dabitis ipsis Levitis.
3. And the cities shall they have to dwell in; and the suburbs of them shall be for their cattle, and for their goods, and for all their…
The tribe of Levi received no territory, so ch 35 describes their allotment of 48 towns dispersed among the territories of Israel’s other tribes (see Josh 21; see also Lev 25:32-34; 1 Chr 13:2; 2 Chr 11:14). Just as the Levites had lived in the center of the Israelite camp during the wilderness period (cp. Num 2:17), in the Promised Land they were to live among the other tribes and have a leavening influence among them (see Deut 33:9-10; 2 Chr 17:7-9; 19:8-11; 35:3). The cities and their surrounding pastureland were not a “homeland” (cp. Num 18:23; 26:62) but only a tiny fraction of the Canaanite territory dispersed among the other tribes.
The Church Fathers
But that both my discourse and your understanding may be somewhat elevated and may conceive a certain approach toward perceiving the things we are speaking of, let us make use of some comparison. No one doubts that in the land of Judaea every place, every mountain, every city and village is designated by certain particular names; nor is there any place at all without a name, but each single one is designated by its own appellations—for example, those by which the Canaanites named them in their regions, or the Perizzites likewise in theirs, and the Amorites, or the Hivites, or even the Hebrews. So then, according to the opinion of Paul, by which he says that earthly things are a shadow and copy of heavenly ones, perhaps in the heavenly regions too there will be differences of places, and those not slight, distinguished namely by certain appellations and names, and marked with names not only of the quarters of heaven, but even of all the stars and constellations. For he who made the multitude of the stars, as the prophet says, "calls them all by their names." Concerning these names very many secret and hidden things are indeed contained in the little books which are called Enoch; but because these little books themselves do not seem to be held in authority among the Hebrews, let us for the present defer citing as an example what is there named, and let us instead pursue our investigation of these matters from those things which we have in hand, about which there can be no doubt. The land of Judaea, then, is described by the words of God in the divine law, and it is said that these things ought to be referred to the image of heavenly things; and that in the heavens there is a city Jerusalem is plainly declared by the Apostle, and Mount Zion. It is therefore consequent that, just as there are also other cities situated around the earthly Jerusalem, and villages and various regions, so also that heavenly Jerusalem, according to the image of earthly things, has around it both other cities and villages and various regions, in which the people of God and the true Israel is at some time to be settled through the true Jesus—of whom that Joshua son of Nun bore the image—and is to receive the inheritance by the distribution of the lot, that is, by the consideration of merits. If, then, the Lord now says in the distribution of the land, for example, that the boundaries…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Refuge, Cities of — Were six in number (Num. 35). 1. On the west of Jordan were (1) Kadesh, in Naphtali; (2) Shechem, in Mount Ephraim; (3) Hebron, in Judah. 2. On the east of Jordan were, (1) Golan, in Bashan; (2)…
Priests · Thirteen of the Levitical cities given to, for residence — Thirteen of the Levitical cities given to, for residence
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).