Numbers 35

Nu. 35 : 4, 5. The suburbs of the cities are ordained to be 3000 cubits on every side from the wall of the city and outward. The first thousand cubits are the suburbs, and the 2000, which they measured without the suburbs, were for fields and vineyards. Maimonides.— 7. Moses allotted to the Levites forty-eight cities in different parts of the land, that they might with more convenience go to perform re- ligious offices in every quarter, particularly that of instructing the people, which Moses ex- pressly assigns to their whole tribe (De. 33 : 10). Abp. Secker.

The forty-eight cities, although denominated “Levitical cities,” were not devoted exclusively to members of this tribe. For example, Hebron, which was, perhaps, the most noted of the forty- eight, being the city of refuge for what was afterward the whole kingdom of Judah, formed part of the inheritance of Caleb the Kenezite (Josh. 14 : 14). Doubtless many families of Judah would also be found among the residents ; for the city belonged to Judah. What the Levites obtained was not, in any instance, ex- clusive possession of the city, but certain houses within the walls, and certain pasture grounds (“glebe lands”) adjoining. The houses and glebes thus set apart became the inalienable inheritance of the respective Levitical families. They were as strictly entailed as the lands which constituted the patrimony of the other families in Israel. If at any time they were sold for debt, they reverted to the family at the Jubilee. The cities of refuge were so distributed that no manslayer had far to run before reaching one. There were three on each side of Jordan ; of the three, in each case, one lay near the north border, one near the south border, and one in the middle. Every city was the natural centre of its province and accessible from every side. They were so situated that no fugitive required to cross either a river or a mountain chain before reaching his refuge. How strikingly is all this realized in Christ our refuge ! Binnie.

Now when Eleazar and Phinehas have the promise of an everlasting priesthood, and the leadership is about to pass, in Joshua, to the tribe of Ephraim, one object of the dying Law- giver is to confirm the priestly dignity of the tribe of Levi, on which the very preservation of the whole legal economy would depend.

The Levites were made to depend for their subsistence on the tithes and offerings of the people, and new and strong safeguards for their protection would be needed after Moses was gone. Hence he enforces more than twenty times the distinctive honors and privileges of the Levites, while the prerogatives of Aaron’s family are left to depend on the Sinaitic legislation. This feature of Deuteronomy, which has been alleged as a proof of separate and later authorship, is really a sign of its historical truth and Mosaic origin. Birks.—The three codes present the cities of refuge much as we might expect them to do on the supposition that they appear in chronological order, and that all of them originated within the Mosaic period. The Book of the Covenant (Ex. 21 : 13) recognizes the necessity for a law on the subject, and announces that some place will be provided to which one accidentally taking the life of another may flee and be safe. In the fuller legislation of Numbers (35 : 1-38), in natural connection with instructions concerning the Levitical cities, such provision is duly made, and a sufficient number of conveniently situated asylums of this sort appointed. In Deuteronomy (4 : 41-43) we find Moses, in harmony with the law of the middle books, designating three cities of refuge on the eastern side of the Jordan; and subsequently, Joshua (Josh. 21 : 13, 21, 27) selecting the other three called for by the statutes on the western side. The Deuteronomic code (19 : 1-13; cf 24 : 16), evidently presupposing what Moses is recorded as doing here previously, is much of the nature of a commentary on the law in Numbers. It makes still more explicit by illustration what class of persons might find domicile within the refuge cities; gives comprehensive, though brief, directions for rendering the cities easily accessible, and, what is more important of all for our investigations, adds the concession that, on certain conditions, three cities more, making nine in all, may be used for this purpose. The conditions are that the people prove obedient and faithful—which, unhappily, they do not—and their boundaries are ultimately enlarged to the extent promised to Abraham. E. C. B.