And the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel: from them that have many ye shall give many; but from them that have few ye shall give few: every one shall give of his cities unto the Levites according to his inheritance which he inheriteth.
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| cities | וְהֶֽעָרִ֗ים ve.he.'a.Rim | H5892 | a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · conjunction + definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute |
| give | תִּתְּנוּ֙ ti.te.Nu | H5414 | to give · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural |
| possession | מֵאֲחֻזַּ֣ת me.'a.chu.Zat | H272 | something seized · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct |
| children | בְּנֵי be.nei- | H1121 | a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct |
| Israel | יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל Yis.ra.'El | H3478 | Jisrael · proper noun, a place name |
| many | הָרַב֙ ha.Rav | H7227 | abundant (in quantity · definite article + adjective, masculine singular absolute |
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 from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel--The burden of furnishing those places for the residence and support of the Levitical order was to fall in equitable proportions upon the different tribes (see Num 33:54; Jos 20:7).
And ye shall measure from without the city - two thousand cubits, etc. - Commentators have been much puzzled with the accounts in these two verses. In Num 35:4 the measure is said to be 1,000 cubits from the wall; in Num 35:5 the measure is said to be 2,000 from without the city. It is likely these two measures mean the same thing; at least so it was understood by the Septuagint and Coptic, who have δισχιλιους πηχεις, 2,000 cubits, in the fourth, as well as in the fifth verse; but this reading of the Septuagint and Coptic is not acknowledged by any other of the ancient versions, nor by any of the MSS. collated by Kennicott and De Rossi. We must seek therefore for some other method of reconci…
Read the whole note in the consoleAnd the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel,.... What shall fall by lot for their inheritance, and they shall be possessed of; and though they are, shall not refuse, nor grudge to give them, according to the direction of God, whose the land is, they holding it under him: from them that have many ye shall give many, but from them that have few ye shall give few; which rule was observed; for out of Judah, whose lot was large, and out of Simeon, whose inheritance was within that of Judah, because it was so large, nine cities were given, whereas out of the other tribes only four cities out of each were given, and out of one of them but three, see Josh…
Read the whole note in the consoleNumbers 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…
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).
| many |
| תַּרְבּ֔וּ tar.Bu |
| H7235 |
| to increase (in whatever respect) · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural |
| few | הַמְעַ֖ט ham.'At | H4592 | a little or few (often adverbial or compar.) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| few | תַּמְעִ֑יטוּ tam.'I.tu | H4591 | properly · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural |
| one | אִ֗ישׁ 'Ish | H376 | a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| give | יִתֵּ֥ן yi.Ten | H5414 | to give · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
| cities | מֵעָרָ֖יו me.'a.Rav | H5892 | a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular |
| Levites | לַלְוִיִּֽם lal.vi.Yim | H3881 | a Levite or descendant of Levi · preposition with the article + noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute |
| according | כְּפִ֤י ke.Fi | H6310 | the mouth (as the means of blowing) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct |
| inheritance | נַחֲלָתוֹ֙ na.cha.la.To | H5159 | properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular |
| inheriteth | יִנְחָ֔לוּ yin.Cha.lu | H5157 | to inherit (as a (figurative) mode of descent) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural |
Of these cities which were given up to the Levites, six were to serve as cities of refuge (see at Num 35:12) for manslayers, and in addition to these (עליהם, over upon them) the Israelites were to give of their possessions forty-two others, that is to say, forty-eight in all; and they were to do this, giving much from every tribe that had much, and little from the one which had little (Num 26:54). With the accusatives הערים את and ערי שׁשׁ עת (Num 35:6), the writer has already in his mind the verbs תּרבּוּ and תּמעיטוּ of Num 35:8, where he takes up the object again in the word והערים. According to Josh 21, the Levites received nine cities in the territory of Judah and Simeon, four in the te…
Read the whole note in the consoleSix of the Levites’ towns had a special purpose as cities of refuge, places where a person who has accidentally killed someone can flee for safety. This unusual institution illustrates the humanitarian aspect of Hebrew law (see also Deut 4:41-43; 19:1-13; Josh 20). These six Levitical towns provided a safe haven in cases of accidental or involuntary manslaughter (cp. Exod 21:12-14). Just as the forty-eight Levite towns were widely distributed across Israel’s territories, the six cities of refuge were dispersed so they would be widely accessible (see Josh 20:7-8). These designated settlements supplemented the role of the altar as a temporary place of asylum (e.g., 1 Kgs 1:50-53; 2:28-34; cp.…
Read the whole note in the consoleאלף אמה סביב A THOUSAND CUBITS ROUND ABOUT — But afterwards, (v. 5) it says, “two thousand cubits”!? How can that be? They assign two thousand for them (for the Levites) round about their cities, and of these, the innermost thousand serves as the “open space” and the outermost is for fields and vineyards (Sotah 27b).
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
