The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Suburbs” it comes from the Hebrew Word “migrash” which means “open pastureland surrounding a city.”
The one tribe with no land of its own still receives something valuable, scattered throughout every other tribe’s territory. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Joshua 21.
The heads of the Levite families come to Eleazar the priest, Joshua, and the tribal leaders at Shiloh, reminding them that the Lord commanded through Moses that they be given cities to dwell in, along with surrounding suburbs, “migrash” in Hebrew, meaning open pastureland, for their livestock. The children of Israel give the Levites cities and their pasturelands out of their own inheritance, exactly as the Lord had commanded.
These cities are distributed among the Levites’ three family divisions, the Kohathites, Gershonites, and Merarites, spread deliberately throughout the territories of nearly every other tribe rather than concentrated in one single region. This arrangement ensured that Levites, and therefore the teaching and influence of God’s law, would be present and accessible throughout the entire land, not confined to just one area.
In total, forty-eight cities with their surrounding pasturelands are given to the Levites, including the six cities of refuge established in the previous chapter. The chapter closes with a sweeping, confident summary of everything accomplished throughout the book so far. “The LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it, and dwelt therein… There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.”
Scattering the Levites throughout every tribe’s territory, rather than gathering them into one central region, meant that spiritual instruction and God’s law remained accessible everywhere in the land, not concentrated among the privileged few living near a single religious center. This chapter’s closing summary stands as a remarkable testimony that every single promise God made was fully kept.
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