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Thursday, September 11th, 2025
the Week of Proper 18 / Ordinary 23
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Read the Bible

English Standard Version

Numbers 35:4

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.

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.
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.
Contemporary English Version
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.
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 The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 2 "Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasturelands around the cities. 3 The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasturelands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts. 4 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. 5 And you shall measure, outside the city, on the east side two thousand cubits, and on the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle. This shall belong to them as pastureland for their cities. 6 "The cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. 7 All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be forty-eight, with their pasturelands. 8 And as for the cities that you shall give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits, shall give of its cities to the Levites."

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
So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments.
Genesis 35:4
So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.
Genesis 35:24
The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.
Genesis 35:25
The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali.
Genesis 35:26
The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
Genesis 35:27
And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned.
Exodus 32:20
He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
Deuteronomy 7:5
But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
Deuteronomy 7:25
The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.
Judges 9:6
And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth-millo, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

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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