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Contemporary English Version

Numbers 35:4

The pasture around each of these towns must be in the shape of a square, with the town itself in the center. The pasture is to measure three thousand feet on each side, with fifteen hundred feet of land outside each of the town walls. This will be the Levites' pastureland.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Canaan;   Cities;   Levites;   Priest;   Suburbs;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Levites, the;   Priests;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Levites;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Levite;   Measurement;   Tribes;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Worship;   Easton Bible Dictionary - City;   Levite;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Cities of Refuge;   Pentateuch;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Cities of Refuge;   Levites;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Clean and Unclean;   Numbers, Book of;   Priests and Levites;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Levites ;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Levi;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Weights and Measures;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Cubit;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - On to Canaan;   Conquest of Canaan;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Criticism (the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis);   Levitical Cities;   Palestine;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Asylum;   Priestly Code;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
The suburbs of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward one thousand cubits round about.
King James Version
And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
Lexham English Bible
"The pasturelands of the cities that you will give to the Levites will extend from the wall of the city to a distance of a thousand cubits all around.
English Standard Version
The pasturelands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.
New Century Version
The pastureland you give the Levites will extend fifteen hundred feet from the city wall.
New English Translation
The grazing lands around the towns that you will give to the Levites must extend to a distance of 500 yards from the town wall.
Amplified Bible
"The pasture lands around the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits (1,500 ft.) around.
New American Standard Bible
"The pasture lands of the cities which you are to give to the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits around.
Geneva Bible (1587)
And the suburbes of the cities, which ye shal giue vnto the Leuites, from the wall of the citie outward, shalbe a thousand cubites round about.
Legacy Standard Bible
"And the pasture lands of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward one thousand cubits around.
Complete Jewish Bible
The open land around the cities you give to the L'vi'im is to commence at a line drawn around the city wall 1,500 feet outside it and is to extend outward from there.
Darby Translation
And the suburbs of the cities that ye shall give unto the Levites shall be from the walls of the city outward, a thousand cubits round about.
Easy-to-Read Version
How much of your land should you give to the Levites? From the walls of the cities, go out 1500 feet—all of that land will belong to the Levites.
George Lamsa Translation
And the suburbs of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
Good News Translation
The pasture land is to extend outward from the city walls five hundred yards in each direction,
Christian Standard Bible®
The pasturelands of the cities you are to give the Levites will extend from the city wall five hundred yards on every side.
Literal Translation
And the open land around the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits all around.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The suburbes which ye geue vnto ye Leuites, shal reache fro the wall of ye cite outwarde, a M. cubites rounde aboute.
American Standard Version
And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
Bible in Basic English
Stretching from the wall of the towns a distance of a thousand cubits all round.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And the suburbes of the cities whiche ye shall geue vnto the Leuites, shall reache from the wall of the citie outwarde, a thousande cubites rounde about.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
And the open land about the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
King James Version (1611)
And the suburbs of the cities, which yee shall giue vnto the Leuites, shall reach from the wall of the citie, and outward, a thousand cubites round about.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And the suburbs of the cities which ye shall give to the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outwards two thousand cubits round about.
English Revised Version
And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
Berean Standard Bible
The pasturelands around the cities you are to give the Levites will extend a thousand cubits from the wall on every side.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
whiche suburbabis schulen be strecchid forth fro the wallis of citees with outforth `bi cumpas, in the space of a thousynde paacis;
Young's Literal Translation
`And the suburbs of the cities which ye give to the Levites [are], from the wall of the city and without, a thousand cubits round about.
Update Bible Version
And the suburbs of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
Webster's Bible Translation
And the suburbs of the cities which ye shall give to the Levites, [shall reach] from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits on all sides.
World English Bible
The suburbs of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward one thousand cubits round about.
New King James Version
The common-land of the cities which you will give the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.
New Living Translation
The pastureland assigned to the Levites around these towns will extend 1,500 feet from the town walls in every direction.
New Life Bible
The fields you give the Levites should be around the cities, from the city walls out 500 long steps.
New Revised Standard
The pasture lands of the towns, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the town outward a thousand cubits all around.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And, the pasture lands of the cities which ye shall give unto the Levite, shall be, - from the wail of the city, and outwards, a thousand cubits round about
Douay-Rheims Bible
Which suburbs shall reach from the walls of the cities outward, a thousand paces on every side:
Revised Standard Version
The pasture lands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all round.
THE MESSAGE
"The pasture surrounding the Levites' towns is to extend 1,500 feet in each direction from the city wall. The outside borders of the pasture are to measure three thousand feet on each of the four sides—east, south, west, and north—with the town at the center. Each city will be supplied with pasture.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"The pasture lands of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits around.

Contextual Overview

1 While the people of Israel were still camped in the lowlands of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho, the Lord told Moses 2 to say to them: When you receive your tribal lands, you must give towns and pastures to the Levi tribe. 3 That way, the Levites will have towns to live in and pastures for their animals. 4The pasture around each of these towns must be in the shape of a square, with the town itself in the center. The pasture is to measure three thousand feet on each side, with fifteen hundred feet of land outside each of the town walls. This will be the Levites' pastureland. 6 Six of the towns you give them will be Safe Towns where a person who has accidentally killed someone can run for protection. But you will also give the Levites forty-two other towns, 7 so they will have a total of forty-eight towns with their surrounding pastures. 8 Since the towns for the Levites must come from Israel's own tribal lands, the larger tribes will give more towns than the smaller ones.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

thousand cubits: The Septuagint reads היףקיכיןץע נחקויע "two thousand cubits," as in the following verse; but this reading is not acknowledged by any other ancient version, except the Coptic, nor by any of the manuscripts collated by Kennicott and De Rossi. Various modes have been proposed for reconciling the accounts in these two verses, which appear in general to require full as much explanation as the text itself. The explanation of Maimonides is the only one that is intelligible, and appears perfectly satisfactory. "The suburbs," says he, "of the cities are expressed in the law to be 3,000 cubits on every side, from the wall of the city and outwards. The first 1,000 cubits are the suburbs; and the 2,000, which they measured without the suburbs, were for fields and vineyards." The whole therefore, of the city, suburbs, fields, and vineyards, may be represented by the following diagram:

Fields and vineyards Suburbs City 1,000; Cubits 2,000; Cubits

Cross-References

Genesis 35:2
Jacob said to his family and to everyone else who was traveling with him: Get rid of your foreign gods! Then make yourselves acceptable to worship God and put on clean clothes.
Genesis 35:4
So everyone gave Jacob their idols and their earrings, and he buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.
Genesis 35:27
Jacob went to his father Isaac at Hebron, also called Mamre or Kiriath-Arba, where Isaac's father Abraham had lived as a foreigner.
Exodus 32:20
He melted the idol the people had made, and he ground it into powder. He scattered it in their water and made them drink it.
Deuteronomy 7:5
So when you conquer these nations, tear down the altars where they worship their gods. Break up their sacred stones, cut down the poles that they use in worshiping the goddess Asherah, and throw their idols in the fire.
Deuteronomy 7:25
After you conquer a nation, burn their idols. Don't get trapped into wanting the silver or gold on an idol. Even the metal on an idol is disgusting to the Lord ,
Judges 9:6
The leaders of Shechem, including the priests and the military officers, met at the tree next to the sacred rock in Shechem to crown Abimelech king.
Isaiah 2:20
On that day everyone will throw to the rats and bats their idols of silver and gold they made to worship.
Isaiah 30:22
Then you will treat your idols of silver and gold like garbage; you will throw them away like filthy rags.
Hosea 2:13
I'll punish her for the days she worshiped Baal and burned incense to him. I'll punish her for the times she forgot about me and wore jewelry and rings to attract her lovers. I, the Lord , have spoken!

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the suburbs of the cities which ye shall give unto the Levites,.... The dimensions and bounds of them were not left to the Israelites, to give what ground they pleased for this purpose, but were fixed to what length they should be: these

[shall reach] from the walls of the city, and outward, a thousand cubits round about; which was half a sabbath day's journey, and pretty near half a mile, which all around a city must contain a considerable quantity of ground, if the city was of any size, as it is certain that some of them given them at least were.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Numbers 35:4. And the suburbs of the cities - shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.


 
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