Study Desk

And the limit is marked as coming round to the south on the west side from the mountain which is south of Beth-horon, and ending at Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), a town of the children of Judah: this is the west part.

And the limit of the east part is the Jordan. This is the heritage of the children of Benjamin, marked out for their families by these limits on all sides.

And the towns of the children of Benjamin, given to them in the order of their families, are Jericho and Beth-hoglah and Emek-kezziz

And Zela, Eleph and the Jebusite (which is Jerusalem), Gibeath and Kiriath; fourteen towns with their unwalled places. This is the heritage of the children of Benjamin by their families.

And the second heritage came out for the tribe of Simeon by their families; and their heritage was in the middle of the heritage of the children of Judah.

The heritage of Simeon was taken out of Judah's stretch of land, for Judah's part was more than they had need of, so the heritage of the children of Simeon was inside their heritage.

This is the heritage of the children of Zebulun by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

For Issachar the fourth heritage came out, for the children of Issachar by their families;

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Issachar by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Asher by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

For the children of Naphtali the sixth heritage came out, for the children of Naphtali by their families;

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Naphtali by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

(But the limit of the children of Dan was not wide enough for them; so the children of Dan went up and made war on Leshem and took it, putting it to the sword without mercy, and they took it for their heritage and made a place for themselves there, giving it the name of Leshem-dan, after the name of their father, Dan.)

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Dan by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

So the distribution of the land and its limits was complete; and the children of Israel gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a heritage among them;

These are the heritages which Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel gave out at Shiloh, by the decision of the Lord, at the door of the Tent of meeting. So the distribution of the land was complete.

Say to the children of Israel, Let certain towns be marked out as safe places, as I said to you by the mouth of Moses,

These were the towns marked out for all the children of Israel and for the man from a strange country living among them, so that anyone causing the death of another in error, might go in flight there, and not be put to death by him who has the right of punishment for blood till he had come before the meeting of the people.

Then the heads of the families of the Levites came to Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun, and to the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel;

And the children of Israel out of their heritage gave to the Levites these towns with their grass-lands, by the order of the Lord.