Study Desk

Moses said to them, "If the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben will cross over the Jordan with you, every man armed for battle before the LORD, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead [east of the Jordan River] as a possession;

Beth-nimrah, and Beth-haran, fortified (walled) cities, and sheepfolds for sheep.

They moved out from Rephidim and camped in the Wilderness of Sinai [where they remained for about a year].

and you shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess.

for the tribe of the sons of Reuben and the tribe of the sons of Gad have received their inheritance by their fathers' households, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their possession.

"You shall take one leader from every tribe to divide the land for the inheritance.

"The cities shall be theirs to live in; and their pasture lands shall be for their cattle and for their herds and for all their livestock.

"You shall also measure outside the city on the east, south, west, and north sides two thousand cubits (3,000 ft.), with the city in the center. This shall belong to the Levites as pasture lands for the cities.

"[Among] the cities which you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, which you shall provide for the one who commits manslaughter to flee to; and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities [to the Levites].

"As for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the Israelites, from the larger tribes you shall take many and from the smaller tribes few; each tribe shall give [at least some] of its cities to the Levites in proportion to [the size of] its inheritance which it possesses."

then you shall select for yourselves cities to be cities of refuge, so that the one who kills any person unintentionally may escape there.

'These six cities shall be a refuge for the Israelites and for the stranger and the resident alien among them; so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may escape there.

'These things shall be a statute for you throughout your generations wherever you may be.

'Moreover, you shall not accept a ransom [in exchange] for the life of a murderer guilty and sentenced to death; but he shall certainly be put to death.

'You shall not accept a ransom for him who has escaped to his city of refuge, so that he may return to live in his [own] land before the death of the high priest.

'So you shall not pollute and defile the land in which you live; for [the shedding of innocent] blood pollutes and defiles the land. No atonement (expiation) can be made for the land for the [innocent] blood shed in it, except by the blood (execution) of him who shed it.

'You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I live, for I, the LORD, live among the people of Israel.'"

"So no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from tribe to tribe, for every one of the Israelites shall hold to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers (tribal ancestors).

For Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father's brothers.

It is [only] eleven days' journey from Horeb (Mount Sinai) by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan's border; yet Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years before crossing the border and entering Canaan, the promised land].