JOSHUA 21 COMME TARYEDITED BY GLE PEASE

Towns for the Levites

1 ow the family heads of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of un, and the heads of the other tribal families of Israel

BAR ES, "A list of the Levitical cities, varying in some particulars from that given in this chapter, is also, given in 1 Chr. 6:54-81.

CLARKE, "The heads of the fathers of the Levites - The Levites were composed of three brand families, the Gershonites, Koathites, and Merarites, independently of the family of Aaron, who might be said to form a fourth. To none of these had God assigned any portion in the division of the land. But in this general division it must have been evidently intended that the different tribes were to furnish them with habitations; and this was according to a positive command of God, Num_35:2, etc. Finding now that each tribe had its inheritance appointed to it, the heads of the Levites came before Eleazar, Joshua, and the chiefs of the tribes who had been employed in dividing the land, and requested that cities and suburbs should be granted them according to the Divine command.

GILL, "Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites,.... When the land was divided to the several tribes, and everyone knew the cities that belonged to them, and what they could and should part with to the Levites, and when the six cities of refuge were fixed; the Levites came to put in their claim for cities of habitation, they having no share in the division of the land; and yet it was necessary they should have habitations; the persons that undertook to put in a claim for them were the principal men among them; the fathers of them were Kohath, Gershon, and Merari; the heads of those were the chief men that were then living: these came

unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of Nun; the high priest and chief magistrate:

and unto the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel; the princes appointed to divide the land with the two great personages before mentioned, Num_34:17.

HE RY 1-8, "Here is, I. The Levites' petition presented to this general convention of the states, now sitting at Shiloh, Jos_21:1, Jos_21:2. Observe, 1. They had not their lot assigned them till they made their claim. There is an inheritance provided for all the saints, that royal priesthood, but then they must petition for it. Ask, and it shall be given you. Joshua had quickened the rest of the tribes who were slack to put in their claims, but the Levites, it may be supposed, knew their duty and interest better than the rest, and were therefore forward in this matter, when it came to their turn, without being called upon. They build their claim upon a very good foundation, not their own merits nor services, but the divine precept: “The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities, commanded you to grant them, which implied a command to us to ask them.” Note, The maintenance of ministers is not an arbitrary thing, left purely to the good-will of the people, who may let them starve if they please; no, as the God of Israel commanded that the Levites should be well provided for, so has the Lord Jesus, the King of the Christian church, ordained, and a perpetual ordinance it is that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1Co_9:14), and should live comfortably. 2. They did not make their claim till all the rest of the tribes were provided for, and then they did it immediately. There was some reason for it; every tribe must first know their own, else they would not know what they gave the Levites, and so it could not be such a reasonable service as it ought to be. But it is also an instance of their humility, modesty, and patience (and Levites should be examples of these and other virtues), that they were willing to be served last, and they fared never the worse for it. Let not God's ministers complain if at any time they find themselves postponed in men's thoughts and cares, but let them make sure of the favour of God and the honour that comes from him, and then they may well enough afford to bear the slights and neglects of men.

II. The Levites' petition granted immediately, without any dispute, the princes of Israel being perhaps ashamed that they needed to be called upon in this matter, and that the motion had not been made among themselves for the settling of the Levites. 1. The children of Israel are said to give the cities for the Levites. God had appointed how many they should be in all, forty-eight. It is probable that Joshua and the princes, upon consideration of the extent and value of the lot of each tribe as it was laid before them, had appointed how many cities should be taken out of each; and then the fathers of the several tribes themselves agreed which they should be, and therefore are said to give them, as an offering, to the Lord; so God had appointed. Num_35:8, Every one shall give of his cities to the Levites. Here God tried their generosity, and it was found to praise and honour, for it appears by the following catalogue that the cities they gave to the Levites were generally some of the best and most considerable in each tribe. And it is probable that they had an eye to the situation of them, taking care they should be so dispersed as that no part of the country should be too far distant from a Levites' city. 2. They gave them at the commandment of the Lord, that is, with an eye to the command and in obedience to it, which was it that sanctified the grant. They gave the number that God commanded, and it was well this matter was settled that the Levites might not ask more nor the Israelites offer less. They gave them also with their suburbs, or glebe-lands, belonging to them, so many cubits by measure from the walls of the city, as God had commanded (Num_35:4, Num_35:5), and did not go about to cut them short. 3. When the forty-eight cities were pitched upon, they were divided into four lots, as they lay next together, and then by lot were determined to the four several families of the tribe of Levi. When the Israelites had surrendered the cities into the hand of God, he would himself

have the distributing of them among his servants. (1.) The family of Aaron, who were the only priests, had for their share the thirteen cities that were given by the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin, Jos_21:4. God in wisdom ordered it thus, that though Jerusalem itself was not one of their cities, it being as yet in the possession of the Jebusites (and those generous tribes would not mock the Levites, who had another warfare to mind, with a city that must be recovered by the sword before it could be enjoyed), yet the cities that fell to their lot were those which lay next to Jerusalem, because that was to be, in process of time, the holy city, where their business would chiefly lie. (2.) The Kohathite-Levites (among whom were the posterity of Moses, though never distinguished from them) had the cities that lay in the lot of Dan, which lay next to Judah, and in that of Ephraim, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, which lay next to Benjamin. So those who descended from Aaron's father joined nearest to Aaron's sons. (3.) Gershon was the eldest son of Levi, and therefore, though the younger house of the Kohathites was preferred before his, yet his children had the precedency of the other family of Merari, Jos_21:6. (4.) The Merarites, the youngest house, had their lot last, and it lay furthest off, Jos_21:7. The rest of the sons of Jacob had a lot for every tribe only, but Levi, God's tribe, had a lot for each of its families; for there is a particular providence directing and attending the removals and settlements of ministers, and appointing where those shall fix who are to be the lights of the world.

JAMISO , "Jos_21:1-8. Forty-eight cities given by lot out of the other tribes unto the Levites.

Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites— The most venerable and distinguished members of the three Levitical families, on behalf of their tribe, applied for the special provision that had been promised them to be now awarded (see on Num_35:2). Their inheritance lay within the territory of every tribe. It was assigned in the same place and manner, and by the same commissioners as the other allotments. While the people, knowing the important duties they were to perform, are described (Jos_21:3) as readily conceding this “peculiar” to them, it had most probably been specified and reserved for their use while the distribution of the land was in progress.

K&D 1-3, "After the cities of refuge had been set apart, the towns were also selected, which the different tribes were to give up for the priest and Levites to dwell in according to the Mosaic instructions in Num_35:1-8, together with the necessary fields as pasturage for their cattle. The setting apart of the cities of refuge took place before the appointment of the Levitical towns, because the Lord had given commandment through Moses in Num_35:6, that they were to give to the Levites the six cities of refuge, and forty-two cities besides, i.e., forty-eight cities in all. From the introductory statement in Jos_21:1, Jos_21:2, that the heads of the fathers (see Exo_6:14, Exo_6:25) of the Levitical families reminded the distribution committee at Shiloh of the command of God that had been issued through Moses, that towns were to be given them to dwell in, we cannot infer, as Calvin has done, that the Levites had been forgotten, till they came and asserted their claims. All that is stated in these words is, “that when the business had reached that point, they approached the dividers of the land in the common name of the members of their tribe, to receive by lot the cities appointed for them. They simply expressed the commands of God, and said in so many words, that they had been deputed by the Levites generally to draw lots for those forty-eight cities with their suburbs, which had been appointed for that tribe” (Masius). The clause appended to Shiloh, “in the land

of Canaan,” points to the instructions in Num_34:29 and Num_35:10, to give the children of Israel their inheritance in the land of Canaan.

CALVI , "1.Then came near the heads, etc Here we have at a later period a narrative of what ought to have preceded. For no cities of refuge were appointed before they had been assigned to the Levites. To this may be added what was formerly said, that Joshua and Eleazar had made an end of dividing the land. ow, the land was not truly divided till the habitation of the Levites was fixed. We must understand, therefore, that when the lot was cast in the name of the ten tribes, a reservation was made of cities in the land of Canaan for the habitation of the Levites. Beyond the Jordan their portion had already been assigned to them. But as the Levites come forward and request a ratification of the divine grant, it is probable that they were neglected till they pleaded their own cause. For so it is apt to happen, every one being so attentive in looking after his own affairs that even brethren are forgotten. It was certainly disgraceful to the people that they required to be pulled by the ear, and put in mind of what the Lord had clearly ordered respecting the Levites. But had they not demanded a domicile for themselves, there was a risk of their being left to lie in the open air; although, at the same time, we are permitted to infer that the people erred more from carelessness and forgetfulness than from any intention to deceive, as they make no delay as soon as they are admonished; nay, they are praised for their obedience in that they did what was just and right according to the word of the Lord.

COFFMA , "Here we have the list of the forty-eight Levitical cities, appointed by Joshua, and the other Jewish authorities, at the end of the general subjugation of Canaan, shortly prior to the death of Joshua. The screams of the Bible's critical enemies declare this chapter to be "unhistorical,"[1] but we reject this out of hand as being merely the prejudice of unbelievers and totally irresponsible! Equally objectional is the efforts of critics to assign a seventh-century B.C. date to this list on the basis of, "The distinction between the priests and the Levites in the division of these cities (which is post-exilic)."[2] We reject this because it was Moses himself who made that distinction, a distinction that is just as historical as anything else in the Bible, occurring in the fifteenth century B.C., not in the seventh century! It will be remembered from the Book of umbers that only the priests (the sons of Aaron) could prepare the sacred furniture of the tabernacle for transporting it, and that the Levites were assigned the task of actually carrying it or hauling it in wagons. The acceptable versions of the Holy Bible all teach this, but the critical enemies of the Word of God have made their own corrupt "bible," and it is from it that they procure all this O SE SE about how they suppose it to have been put together by a whole stable of "editors" and "redactors," etc.; and if one wishes to find something "unhistorical," it is that revised "bible" of the critics!

Here is the record of one of the sons of Jacob - Levi. And there are no valid reasons whatever for denying the HISTORICAL REALITY of the Levitical cities appointed here. The Levites were exempt from military service, and the historical fact of the Levites having no allotted territory, as did all the others, actually demands the

appointment of these cities. If we have been told once, up to this point in the five Books of Moses and in Joshua that, "Levi received no inheritance, because the Lord is his inheritance, we have encountered that statement or its equivalent fifteen times!" ow, the question is, "How could it be supposed that the whole tribe of Levi sat still on the matter of requesting the cities Moses had promised for five hundred years or so. That the events reported in this chapter actually occurred within the lifetime of Joshua and almost simultaneously with the final allotments to the various tribes appears to be an absolute certainty, required by the actual circumstances of the case.

Some have complained that the Levitical cities were the last to be assigned, but, as Plummer noted: "Since the Levitical cities were to be assigned within the limits of the property of the other tribes, it was impossible to apportion them until the allotments to all the other tribes had been made."[3]

These cities were appointed by lot, indicating the Divine authority of the assignments, and, of course, all of those allegations about late dates, etc., deny absolutely that God had anything to do with this.

ot only that, "This distribution of the Levitical cities was a fulfillment of Jacob's curse on Levi (Genesis 49:5-7), but God overruled it, through Moses, because of this tribe's having stood with Moses in a crucial hour (Exodus 32:26)."[4] The Levitical cities, although `scattered' as Jacob foretold, nevertheless preserved the identity of the Levites, and their assignment as the teachers of Israel made them necessary and important.

We are indebted to J. R. Dummelow for the following chapter divisions:

(1) The authorities - Eleazar, Joshua, and the princes - are approached by the Levites with a request for the cities, which God, through Moses, had promised (Joshua 21:1-2).

(2) The number and location of the cities is summarized (Joshua 21:3-8).

(3) The Aaronic priests receive their cities in Judah and Benjamin (Joshua 21:9-19).

(4) The cities of the Kohathites are selected from Ephraim, Dan, and West Manasseh (Joshua 21:20-26).

(5) The cities of the Gershonites were chosen in East Manasseh, Issachar, Asher, and aphtali (Joshua 21:27-33).

(6) The cities of the Merarites were chosen from Zebulun, Reuben, and Gad (Joshua 21:34-42).

(7) Then we have the fulfillment of all of God's promises and His giving rest to the people (Joshua 21:43-45).

"Then came near the heads of fathers' houses of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of un, and unto the heads of fathers' houses of the children of Israel; and they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, Jehovah commanded by Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle."

The mention of Eleazar in this passage is not an indication of "P" as a source of this paragraph. This is merely a statement of what happened. The whole government of Israel at that moment in their history was somewhat of a triple authority composed of the head of religion (Eleazar), the executive head of the nation (Joshua), and the representative of all the people. Plummer pointed out that, throughout history this multiple division of governmental powers has persisted. In England, there is the Monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, and the Judicial System. In America, we have the same divisions, the "house of Lords" in the Senate, the "house of Commons" in the House of Representatives, the executive head of the nation in the presidency, and the judicial authority in the Supreme Court. The meaning of these verses is therefore that the Levites appealed to the central government, and backed up their request by appealing to the commandment of God through Moses. Can anyone believe that the Levites WAITED HU DREDS OF YEARS to do this? otice further that the appointment of these Levitical cities was to be done after the appointment of the six cities of refuge, since "That is exactly how Moses commanded it to be done."[5]

COKE, "Ver. 1. Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites unto Eleazar— Immediately after the designation of the cities of refuge, the heads of the Levites, i.e. the chiefs of the families of Levi, who descended from Kohath, Gershom, and Merari, came and presented themselves before Eleazar, Joshua, and the princes of the tribes, ( umbers 34:18.,) whom God had commissioned to divide the country. They related the orders which God had formerly issued in their favour, umbers 35:2; umbers 35:34 and therefore begged that the council at Shilo would be pleased to assign them cities in the several tribes. It is to be observed, that the Lord, displeased at the violence used by Simeon and Levi towards the Shechemites, had denounced against them, that he would divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. This sentence had been already executed towards the descendants of Simeon, whose portion was placed within that of Judah. It would have been the same with respect to the descendants of Levi, but for the fidelity of that tribe at the time of the idolatry of the golden calf. Without revoking, therefore, the sentence pronounced against Levi's posterity, the Lord so disposed matters, that what had at first been a disgrace to the Levites, became a mark of honour. By commanding that they should be divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel, he had declared, that he himself would be their portion; and that being dispersed, as his ministers, among the rest of their brethren, they should be maintained by them, as the interpreters of his word and will. To effect this arrangement, so honourable to them, they here solicit Joshua and the commissioners with him on the subject.

BE SO , ". The heads of the fathers of the Levites — The fathers of the Levites

were Kohath, Gershon, and Merari; and the heads of these were the chief persons now alive of these several families. Thus, the princes of the several tribes, who divided the land in conjunction with Joshua, are called, at the conclusion of this verse and elsewhere, the heads of the fathers of the tribes. The whole land being distributed to the several tribes, but not yet actually possessed by them, and this being the proper season for their making such a claim, these principal Levites now come to the princes of the tribes, and remind them of the command of God respecting the cities to be assigned them.

WHEDO , "1. Heads of the fathers — The most venerable and influential of the three Levitical families. These applied to the same commissioners for the cities promised by Moses, ( umbers 35:1-5.) It is not enough that God makes special promises and provisions. The very persons to whom these promises are made will fail to receive them unless they exert themselves to secure them. Prayer is the key to God’s treasury.

TRAPP, "Verse 1Joshua 21:1 Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of un, and unto the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel;

Ver. 1. Then came near the heads of the fathers.] Some are of opinion that the chief of the priests and Levites did here demand their due when they were not thought of, but by great oversight were passed over in the division. But others, for better reason, hold that they came near now in the proper season, because they were to have their cities and inheritances out of the several tribes and portions allotted unto them, which also they had with very good will, and to a very fair proportion. Once amongst us, the statute of Mortmain provided that men should give no more to the church; so liberal were our forefathers to their clergy. But tempora mutantur; these later times have seen the springs of bounty, like Jordan, turned back, which heretofore did run fresh and fast in to the church. How apt are men to dispute God out of his own, and to begrudge his ministers a competent subsistence; to allow the ox nothing but the straw for treading out the grain, and so much straw as themselves please! This is a sure sign of gasping devotion, and of cursed covetousness, as that great apostle coneludeth. [2 Corinthians 9:5] The Levites, under the law, had a liberal and honourable maintenance by God’s own appointment. Besides all the rest of their incomes by sacrifices, freewill offerings, &c., here they have their cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle, and those of due belonging to them by virtue of God’s command, whom only, and not the people, they were to acknowledge for their benefactor. either hath he made worse provision for the ministers of the gospel than he did for the priests of the law. See 1 Corinthians 9:13-14. But many have learned of Julian the apostate, to take away ministers’ maintenance, pretending conscience, for that too much living was a burden to them, and a hindrance to their ministry.

CO STABLE, "The casting of lots21:1-8

Probably the leaders identified the towns first and then assigned the various groups of Levites to particular cities by lot ( Joshua 21:3-4). The priests (Aaron"s descendants) received13cities within the tribal territories of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin ( Joshua 21:4). The rest of the Kohathites-Aaron was a descendant of Kohath-obtained10 cities in Ephraim, Daniel , and western Manasseh ( Joshua 21:5). The Gershonites lived in13cities in Issachar, Asher, aphtali, and eastern Manasseh ( Joshua 21:6). The Merarites inherited12cities in Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun ( Joshua 21:7). The names of these Levitical towns appear in the following verses ( Joshua 21:9-40).

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:1

Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites. We are not to suppose, with Calvin, that the Levites had been overlooked. Such a supposition is little in keeping with the devout spirit of him who now directed the affairs of the Israelites, who had been minister to Moses the Levite, and had but lately been concerned with Eleazar, the high priest, in making a public recognition of that God to whose service the Levites had been specially set apart. The delay in appointing to the Levites their cities arose from the nature of the arrangement which had to be made for the Levitical cities. The prophecy which threatened (Genesis 49:7) to "scatter them in Israel" was to be fulfilled for the benefit of the whole people. Instead of a portion for himself, Levi, as we have been repeatedly informed (Joshua 13:33; Joshua 14:3; Joshua 18:7), was to have "the Lord God of Israel for his inheritance." Since, therefore, their cities were to be assigned them within the limits of the other tribes, it was impossible to apportion them until the other tribes had been provided for. Unto Eleazar the priest. The close connection between the military and the sacerdotal power is kept up throughout the book. Warned by his one act of neglect in the case of the Gibeonites, Joshua never again appears to have neglected to have recourse to the high priest, that he might ask counsel of God for him, as had been prescribed in umbers 27:21. Eleazar is placed first here, because, as the acknowledged head of the tribe, he was the proper person to prefer its request to the leader. But the whole history shows how entirely Joshua and Eleazar acted in concert. And unto Joshua the son of un. In a matter of ecclesiastical organisation the ecclesiastical took precedence of the civil leader. And unto the heads. The position of Joshua was that of a chief magistrate ruling by constitutional methods. The representatives of the tribes were invariably consulted in all matters of moment. Such appear to have been the original constitution of all early communities, whether Aryan or Semitic. We find it in existence among Homer's heroes. It meets us in the early history of Germanic peoples. It took a form precisely analogous to the Jewish in the old English Witan where the chief men in Church and State took counsel with the monarch on all matters affecting the commonweal of the realm; and the remains of this aristocratic system still meet us in our own House of Lords.

PI K, "The residence of the Levites. On this occasion it will be the cities which were Divinely appointed them for residence which will engage our attention. Since it has pleased the Lord to devote a whole chapter, and a lengthy one, to the subject, it is evident that—whether or not we can discern it—there must be that in it which is of

spiritual importance and practical value for us today. or shall we experience any difficulty in ascertaining its central message if we bear in mind that the ministers of the Gospel are the counterparts of the Levites of old. In that chapter we find it recorded that the heads of the tribe of Levi came before the assembled court of Israel and presented their claim for suitable places where they might settle with their families and possessions. Their petition was received favorably, and their request was granted. Forty-eight cities with their suburbs were assigned them—appointed by the "lot," as had been the case with all the other tribes.

"Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of un, and unto the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel; and they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle. And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, at the commandment of the Lord, these cities and their suburbs" (Josh. 21:1-3). Aaron was a descendant of Levi, and in his official capacity as the high priest of Israel he foreshadowed the Lord Jesus, who now, as the Son of God consecrated for evermore, is "a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. 7:28—8:2, and cf. Rev. 15:3-5). The sons of Aaron, by natural generation, are types of Christians who are given to Christ to serve Him ( um. 3:63), the brethren of Christ sharing by grace His double title of both king and priest (Rev. 1:6, 7). The priestly sons of Aaron and the ministering Levites were also a figure of the public servants of the Lord in the present dispensation, as is clear from 1 Corinthians 9: "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel" (vv. 13, 14).

In stating that ministers of the Gospel are present-day counterparts of Israel’s priests and Levites, it must be borne carefully in mind that (in keeping with the radical differences which characterize the old and the new covenants) there are marked features of dissimilarity as well as resemblance between them. It was the failure, or refusal, to recognize that fact which laid the foundation for the Judaizing and paganizing of public Christianity and the erection and development of "mystery Babylon," with all its sacerdotal and ritualistic pretensions. While there is, as 1 Corinthians 9:13, 14, shows, an analogy in the provision made for the support of the ministers respectively in both dispensations, there is none whatever in the services they render. The priests had no commission to go forth and evangelize (that fell more to the lot of the prophets—Jonah 1:2, etc.), nor is the preacher today called of God to act as an intermediary between others and himself, or in any way to offer satisfaction for their sins—only on the essential ground of his being a Christian (and not in an official character as a clergyman) may he intercede for his brethren or present a sacrifice of praise on their behalf.

Israel’s priests and Levites were, by their birth and calling, nearer to God than were those for whom they acted, and by virtue of their office holier than they. But both nearness to God and sanctification are conferred in Christ, without any distinction,

upon all who are called of God unto the fellowship of His Son, so that, fundamentally, saved ministers and the believers to whom they minister are equal before God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female [and we may add, there is neither clergy nor laity]: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Whatever vital privilege and spiritual dignity Christ purchased for one He secured for all His redeemed alike. It is most important that we should be quite clear upon this point, for it gives the death-blow to all priest-craft. There is absolutely nothing of a sacerdotal character in true Christian ministry, and therefore the whole system of Romanism is antichristian. Again, the Jewish priesthood was restricted to the limits of a single family—the Aaronic—whereas in the selection of those whom He calls to preach the Gospel of His Son God is no respecter of persons, but acts according to His sovereign grace and power.

Stating it in its simplest terms, Joshua 21 sets forth the gracious provision which Jehovah made to meet the temporal needs of the Levites. They were the ones who served Him in the tabernacle and ministered to the congregation in holy things, and as such suitably adumbrated the Divinely called ministers of the Gospel, whose lives are devoted to Christ and His churches. Unlike all the other tribes, no separate portion of Canaan was allotted to the Levites upon the distribution of the land (Deut. 10:8, 9; Joshua 13:14). In like manner, the good soldier of Jesus Christ is forbidden to entangle himself with the affairs of this life (2 Tim. 2:3, 4), for it would ill become one who was the messenger of heaven to occupy his heart with earthly avocations. He is called upon to practice what he preaches, to be a living exemplification of his sermons, denying all fleshly and worldly lusts, and be "an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." He is required to walk in entire separation from the world, and give himself "wholly" to the things of God and the welfare of souls, that his profiting may appear unto all (1 Tim. 4:12, 15). What mortification of corrupt affections and inordinate desires of earthly things and what spiritual mindedness are necessary if the preacher is to give a just representation of Him in whose name he ministers.

But though no separate portion of Canaan was to be apportioned to the Levites, that was far from signifying that they must in some way secure their own interests, or that they were left dependent upon the capricious charity of their brethren. It was not the Divine will that they should earn their living by the sweat of the brow, or that they should beg their daily bread. ot so does the Lord treat His beloved servants. He is no Egyptian taskmaster, demanding that they make bricks but refusing to provide them with straw; instead, He is "the God of all grace," who has promised to supply their every need. Thus it was with the Levites. Full provision was made for their temporal sustenance. The Lord had not only appointed that a liberal part of the heave and wave offerings was to be their food, as well as the best of the oil, and the wine, and the first-fruits, with the tithes of the children of Israel ( um. 18:9-19, 24); but He had also given a commandment that the other tribes should give unto the Levites, out of their own inheritance, cities to dwell in and the suburbs round about them ( um. 35:2-5). In like manner, God has stipulated that those of His people who are indebted to the spiritual ministrations of His servants

should, in turn, minister to their temporal subsistence. This is clear from 1 Corinthians 9:13, 14, and, though it may be somewhat of a digression, we will take a closer look at that passage.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul was vindicating his apostleship (v. 3), which his traducers denied. They objected that he had not personally seen Jesus Christ (v. 1), as had the twelve. That he did not live like other men, going without the ordinary comforts of life (v. 4), being unmarried (v. 5). That he and his companion Barnabas were obliged to support themselves by their own manual labors (v. 6), and therefore that he knew they were not entitled to count upon the gifts of believers for their sustenance (v. 12). The main drift of his reply was that, though he acted voluntarily on the principle of self-denial, yet that by no means disproved that he was sent of God, or that he had not a right to be maintained by the saints. So far from that being the case, he was clearly and fully warranted in claiming their support. This he demonstrates by a number of plain and irrefutable arguments, educed from a variety of cogent considerations. Those arguments lay down principles which are applicable to the servants of Christ in all generations, and therefore are pertinent for today, making known as they do the revealed will of God on this practical matter. It therefore behooves the Lord’s people carefully to weigh the same and be regulated by them.

He began by asking, "Have not we power to forbear working?" (v. 6). The word "power" there signifies right or authority, being used in the same sense as it is in John 1:12. Though in the interrogative form, it has the force of an emphatic affirmative: such is our legitimate prerogative, if we choose to exercise it—to abstain from earning our own living, and to count upon the saints ministering to our bodily needs. This he proceeded to prove by three obvious analogies. First, this accords with the universally recognized rule: "Who goeth a warfare at any lime at his own charges?" (v. 7): as it is the bounden duty of the State to provide for its defenders, equally so of the churches to care for the soldiers of Christ. Second, this is in keeping with the well-established principle that the workman is entitled to remuneration: "Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof?" Third, this is exemplified by the law of nature: "Or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not the milk of the flock?" (v. 7): the husbandman by virtue of his calling has a right to a livelihood from the same. But, conclusive as was such reasoning, the apostle did not conclude at that point.

Paul then proceeded to show that the duty he was contending for—the temporal maintenance of Christ’s servants—was not only required by the law of nations, and the dictates of nature, but was urged by the law of God: "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn (cf. Deuteronomy 25:4)—an example of the humanity which marks the statutes that God gave to Israel (cf. Exodus 23:19, twice repeated; Deuteronomy 22:6). Laboring for its owner, the ox was worthy of its food, and must not be deprived thereof. Upon which the apostle asks, "Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith He it altogether [i.e. assuredly] for our sakes?" (v. 9). If He be so solicitious about the welfare of animals and requires that they be treated justly and kindly, is He indifferent as to how His

honored servants be dealt with? Surely not. "For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope" (v. 10). The Mosaic precept was designed in its ultimate application to enforce the principle that labor should have its remuneration, so that men would work more cheerfully. In the next verse the obvious conclusion is drawn.

"If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?" (v. 11). If it be right and meet that those who cultivate the earth should be encouraged to do their work diligently by the assurance that they shall themselves be permitted to enjoy the fruit of their labors, then surely those who engage in the far more important and exacting task of toiling in Christ’s vineyard, endeavoring to advance His cause, proclaim His Gospel, feed His sheep, should be recognized and rewarded. The same precept is enforced again in 2 Timothy 2:6, "The husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits." Still more plainly is the exhortation given, "Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:6, 7). Thus it is laid down as an unchanging principle that spiritual benefits demand a temporal return. ot that any price can be put upon the invaluable ministry of the Gospel, but that those whom God has set apart to preach it have a just claim for generous compensation. And that not in the way of charity or gratuity, but as a sacred debt—a debt which professing Christians fail to discharge at the peril of their souls. For let none be deceived: if they fail to support the Gospel, God will severely chastise them.

Such a statement as that in verse 11 rebukes and shames any spirit of miserliness or stinginess on the part of those who participate in the privileges of a Gospel ministry but fail to do their fair part in supporting the same, If God’s servants have been used of Him to bestow one class of benefits, is it unreasonable or unequal that they should receive another class of benefits in return? Why, there is no proportion between the one and the other. They dispense that which is spiritual and concerns the eternal interests of the soul, whereas you are required to contribute only that which is material for the needs of the body. If they have faithfully executed their office, will you consider it burdensome to discharge your obvious obligations? Shame on you if you feel that way. Instead, it should be regarded as a holy privilege. "On every principle of commutative justice the minister’s right to a subsistence must be conceded" (Hodge). But the apostle did not conclude his appeal even at this point, but clinched his argument by citing scriptural proof that God had ordained this very thing.

"Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?" (v. 13). Here the testimony of God’s own institution is quoted, linking all that has been before us in 1 Corinthians 9 with the theme of Joshua 21, for the reference has directly in view the provision made by the Lord for the maintenance of Israel’s priests and Levites. They were supported in their work by the offerings of the people, being Divinely permitted to eat a portion of the animals which had been presented to God in

sacrifice. The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and His inheritance" (Deut. 18:1, and cf. um. 5:9, 10). "A part of the animal offered in sacrifice is burned as an offering to God, and a part becomes the property of the priest for his support; and thus the altar and the priest become joint participators of the sacrifice. From these offerings the priests derived their maintenance" (A. Barnes, to whom we are indebted for not a little of the above). Thus, that for which the apostle was contending was sanctioned by Divine authority.

"Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel" (v. 14). Here, by Divine inspiration, the apostle declares that Christ has made the same ordinance for this dispensation as obtained under the old one. He who provided that those who served Him in His earthly temple should be partakers of the altar has also willed that those who minister His Gospel should be duly cared for. This is not optional, but obligatory. It is a Divine command, which demands obedience. If on the one hand the minister is entitled to support, on the other hand his hearers are not at liberty to withhold the same. It is both a duty and a privilege to comply. It is not a matter of charity, but of right, that the preacher should be compensated for his labors. "The maintenance of ministers is not an arbitrary thing, left purely to the good will of the people, who may let them starve if they please; no, as the God of Israel commanded that Levites should be well provided for, so has the Lord Jesus, the King of the Church, ordained, and a perpetual ordinance it is" (Matthew Henry). Devotion to the Lord, the spirit of gratitude, the claims of love, and the workings of grace should make the duty a delight. The honor of Christ’s cause, the usefulness of His servants, yes, and the happiness of His people (Acts 20:35), are bound up in heeding this rule.

A beautiful illustration of compliance with the Divine requirement is found in Philippians 4. There we have the apostle expressing his appreciation and gratitude unto an assembly of the saints for the practical way in which they had manifested their love to him and their fellowship in the Gospel: "But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful [solicitous], but ye lacked opportunity" (v. 10). They were not among that large class of professing Christians who deem themselves willing to profit from a Gospel ministry, but who have very little concern for the temporal welfare of Christ’s servants. On the contrary, they had been mindful of His minister, and as occasion arose and opportunity was afforded they had sent of their substance to him while he was away laboring in other parts. This brought back to his memory similar kindnesses which they had shown him years before: " ow ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel [when he commenced his evangelistic career], when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity" (vv. 15, 16). So far from being a case of "out of sight, out of mind," he was constantly in their thoughts.

During Paul’s extensive travels the Philippians had lost touch with him—though not their interest in him, as the "wherein [i.e. during the lengthy interval] ye were also

careful" attests, but they had no "opportunity" to communicate with him. But now that they learned that he was a prisoner in Rome for the Truth’s sake, they sent to him a further token of their affection and esteem by Epaphroditus (v. 18). Most blessed is it to mark the spirit in which the apostle received their gift. First, while gratefully acknowledging their present (v. 14), he looked above them to the One who had put into their hearts the desire to minister unto him: "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly (v. 10). Second, he was made happy too on their behalf: " ot because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account" (v. 17)—it furnished proof of the workings of the spirit of grace within, evidencing that they were in a healthy condition spiritually. Third, he declared that their gift met with the approval of his Master, that it was "an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God" (v. 18). Fourth, he assured them that they would be no losers by caring for him: "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (v. 19).

"Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of un, and unto the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel" (Josh. 21:1). There are one or two details here which call for a brief word of explanation. First, each of the tribes was divided into or was grouped under its leading families: they being the descendants of the original sons—the heads, or chiefs, being designated "fathers." Second, Eleazar is mentioned here because this transaction involved the use of "the lot," and he was the one who bore the sacred bag containing the Urim and the Thummim, by which the Divine will was made known. Joshua was also present as Israel’s commander, to see that all was done in an orderly manner. Third, the additional reference to "the heads of the fathers of the tribes" clearly intimates that they were now formally assembled as a court, to examine the petitions of claimants and determine their cases.

The careful reader will observe that the chapter opens with the word "Then." That time-mark is more than a historical reference, pointing an important practical lesson which we do well to heed. Historically, the incident recorded here occurred "when they had made an end of dividing the land for inheritance by their coasts," and when "the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of un" (Josh. 21:49). Then Joshua was bidden by the Lord, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses" (Josh. 20:2). ow the Lord had previously given orders that those cities of refuge (six in number) were to be "among the cities which ye shall give unto the Levites . . . and to them ye shall add forty and two cities. So all the cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty and eight cities: them shall ye give with their suburbs" ( um. 35:6, 7). Those cities of refuge had now been specified (Josh. 21:7, 8), but as yet the remaining forty-two had not been assigned them.

"And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan" (v. 2), for that was where the tabernacle was now situated, and therefore the place where the mind of the Lord could be authoritatively ascertained. It is blessed to see that the Levites deferred their appeal until all the other tribes had been provided for, thereby setting an admirable pattern before all the official servants of God, to suppress everything

in themselves which has even the appearance of covetousness. How incongruous and reprehensible it is for those who profess to be the ministers of grace and truth to exhibit a mercenary or greedy demeanor! It was "an instance of their humility, modesty, and patience (and Levites should be examples of these and other virtues) that they were willing to be served last, and they fared never the worse for it. Let not God’s ministers complain if at any time they find themselves postponed in men’s thoughts and cares, but let them make sure of the favor of God and the honor that comes from Him, and then they may well enough afford to bear the slights and neglects of men" (Matthew Henry).

It should also be carefully noted that these God-honoring Levites made known their claim openly and publicly, instead of secretly and privately. They did not engage in a "whispering campaign," going around sowing the seeds of dissension among their brethren, or of criticism of Joshua, complaining at their being neglected—for as yet no provision had been made where they should reside with their families and flocks. o, they applied in an orderly and frank manner before the Divinely appointed court, saying, "The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle" (v. 2). Their petition was brief and to the point; their language firm but reverent. They came not as beggars, and asked for no favors. Their appeal was neither to charity nor to equity—as being due them on the ground of fairness. They used no claim of worthiness or fidelity to duty. Instead, their appeal was made to the word of God, that which He had commanded by Moses; and thus they acted on the basis of a "Thus saith the Lord."

It is quite evident, then, that on this occasion the Levites were far from being actuated by a spirit of either discontent or covetousness. Had they been moved by avarice they had not waited until now, but had either taken matters into their own hands or had put in their claim much earlier. o, it was an orderly request that they should now receive that to which they were entitled by Divine grant. Most commendable was their meekness and patience. How different the character and conduct of so many ecclesiastics during the Christian era, whose love of money and lust for power knew no bounds, scrupling not to employ the most tyrannous measures and heartless methods to impoverish their members while they lived in luxury and resided in their "palaces"! And the same spirit is by nature in every preacher, and against its least indulgence he needs to be on his guard. Unspeakably solemn is it to note that the oft-quoted words, "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows," occur in one of the pastoral epistles! They are succeeded by, "But thou, O man of God [i.e. servant of Christ], flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness" (1 Tim. 6:10, 11).

or is it without reason that the injunction "having food and raiment, let us be therewith content" is found in the same epistle (Josh. 6:8), immediately preceding the above warning and exhortation. Few realize the sinfulness of discontent, which is nothing but a species of self-will, a secret murmuring against Providence, a being dissatisfied with the portion God has given us. Contrariwise, contentment is a holy

composure of mind, a resting in the Lord, a thankful enjoyment of what He has graciously bestowed. Hence, contentment is the spiritual antidote to covetousness: "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have" (Heb. 13:5)—the former vice can be avoided only by assiduously cultivating the opposite virtue. If the preacher is to magnify his office and glorify his Master, he needs to mortify his fleshly lusts and carnal ambitions, abstaining from all extravagance, and living frugally: evidencing that his affections are set upon things above and not on things below. When Socrates the pagan philosopher beheld a display of costly and elegant articles for sale, he exclaimed: "How many things are here that I need not!" Such ought to be the attitude and language of every child of God as he passes through this "Vanity Fair," pre-eminently so in the case of His servants.

"Giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving [commending] ourselves as the ministers of God" (2 Cor. 6:3, 4). What an exalted standard of piety is that! Yet nothing less is what the Holy One requires of His representatives. The unbelieving are ever ready to charge the Gospel itself with having a strong tendency to encourage the carnalities which disgrace the character of so many professors, and especially if the same appear in the lives of those who preach it. or is that a thing to be wondered at. What can be expected from those who have no experiential acquaintance with the things of God than to conclude that those who preach salvation by grace through Jesus Christ are the products of the same? In their judgment, the daily life of the preacher either commends or condemns his message. Hence it is that, among other reasons, the minister of Christ is bidden: "In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech [and not the slang of the world], that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you" (Titus 2:7, 8).

Returning more directly to the Levites in Joshua 21. In their "The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in" they were, in reality, pleading a Divine promise! It was recorded in umbers 35:1-8, that Jehovah issued definite orders to that end, and therefore they were asking only for that to which they had a right by Divine authority. Here too they have left an example, which needs to be followed not only by God’s servants but by all of His people, for it is the use which we make of His promises that, to a considerable extent, regulates our spiritual prosperity, as well as the peace and joy of our hearts. First, we should labor to become well acquainted with the same, for while we, remain in ignorance no benefit can be derived from them. Those Levites were informed upon that which concerned their interests. So should we be. We should daily search the Scriptures for them, and make an inventory of our spiritual wealth. The Divine promises are the peculiar treasure of the saints, for the substance of faith’s inheritance is wrapped up in them. Second, they should be carefully stored in our minds, constantly meditated upon, and every effort of Satan’s to rob us of the same steadfastly resisted.

Third, God’s promises are to be personally appropriated and pleaded before His

throne of grace. This is one reason why He has given them to us: not only to manifest His loving-kindness in making known His gracious intentions, but also for the comfort of our hearts. Had He so pleased, our Father could have bestowed His blessings without giving us notice of His benign purposes; but He has ordained that we should enjoy them twice over: first by faith, and then by fruition. By this means He weans our hearts away from things seen and temporal, and draws them onward and upward to things which are spiritual and eternal. Thus are we to make His promises the support and stay of our souls. ot only are they to be the food of faith, but the regulators of our petitions. Real prayer is the making request for those things which God is pledged to bestow: "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us" (1 John 5:14): that is, according as His will is made known to us in His Word—anything other than that is self-will on our part (Jam. 4:3).

While on the one hand God has promised to bestow, on the other hand we are required to make request—that He may be duly owned and honored, that we express our dependence upon Him. "Ask, and ye shall receive" is the Divinely appointed way. In Ezekiel 36:36, God makes most definite promise to His people, adding, "I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it." Yet immediately after, He declares, "Thus saith the Lord God: I will yet [nevertheless] for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." Such inquiry is designed for the strengthening of our faith, the quickening of our hope, the development of our patience. Cities had been Divinely assured unto the Levites, yet they received them not until they appealed for them by pleading God’s word to them through Moses! And that has been recorded for our instruction. One wonders how often it is the case that "ye have not, because ye ask not" (James 4:2)—always so when faith be not in exercise (James 1:6, 7). Observe well how Jacob pleaded the Divine promise in Genesis 32:18; Moses in Exodus 32:13; David in Psalm 119:58; Solomon in 1 Kings 8:25, and go thou and do likewise.

PETT, "Chapter 21 The Establishment of the Levites Throughout Israel.

This chapter contains the approach of the Levites to the leaders, to have cities and suburbs given to them in accordance with the command of God by Moses. Grants were made by lot out of the different tribes, details of which are given. The chapter is concludes by observing, that God gave Israel all the land of Canaan, and gave them rest in it, according to his promise, and that nothing failed of all that God had promised.

We do not know the time scale for all these events. The first conquests had taken around five to seven years (based on the age of Caleb which was in round numbers -Joshua 14:10). The further surveying of the land and its division according to the size of the tribes must then have taken quite some time, and we must leave time for advancement and settlement, the cutting down of forests, the establishing of the people in various parts of the land, the reconquest of cities, and the discovery that while the conquest had been a success, in that it had enabled this settlement, there remained yet much to be done.

At what stage Joshua 20 and Joshua 21 occurred we are not told. But it is clear that the central sanctuary was now set up at Shiloh and was regularly visited by the tribes. We need not doubt that under Joshua the regular feasts were held and the covenant constantly renewed, with the regular sacrifices being offered. Israel were becoming established in the land.

Verse 1‘Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites, to Eleazar the priest, and to Joshua, the son of un, and to the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel.’The land having been allocated, and cities of refuge appointed, the Levites now came to remind the leaders, who had accomplished the work, of God’s promise to them that cities with lands for their use would be allocated to them throughout Israel. ote the hierarchy, ‘the heads of the fathers’. The princes of the sub-tribes (the thousands?) were over the fathers of the extended families (the hundreds?), who were over the fathers of the closer families (the tens?). These princes then approached the priest of the central sanctuary, and Joshua their great leader, and the princes of the other tribes.

EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY

THE I HERITA CE OF THE LEVITES.

Joshua 21:1-42.

O CE and again we have found reference made to the fact that Levites received no territorial inheritance among their brethren (Joshua 13:14, Joshua 13:33; Joshua 14:3-4). They had a higher privilege: the Lord was their inheritance. In the present chapter we have an elaborate account of the arrangements for their settlement; it will therefore be suitable here to rehearse their history, and ascertain the relation they now stood in to the rest of the tribes.

In the days of the patriarchs and during the sojourn in Egypt there were no official priests. Each head of a house discharged the duties of the priesthood in patriarchal times, and a similar arrangement prevailed during the residence in Egypt. The whole nation was holy; in this sense it was a nation of priests; all were set apart for the service of God. By-and-by it pleased God to select a portion of the nation specially for His service, to establish, as it were, a holy of holies within the consecrated nation. The first intimation of this was given on that awful occasion when the firstborn of the Egyptians was slain. In token of His mercy in sparing Israel on that night, all the firstborn of Israel, both of man and beast, were specially consecrated to the Lord. The animals were to be offered in sacrifice, except in the case of some, such as the ass, not suited for sacrifice; these were to be redeemed by the sacrifice of another animal. Afterwards a similar arrangement was made with

reference to the firstborn of men, the tribe of Levi being substituted for them (see umbers 3:12). But this arrangement was not made till after the tribe of Levi had shown, by a special act of service, that they were fitted for this honour.

Certainly we should not have thought beforehand that the descendants of Levi would be the specially sacred tribe. Levi himself comes before us in the patriarchal history in no attractive light. He and Simeon were associated together in that massacre of the Shechemites, which we can never read of without horror (Genesis 34:25). Levi was likewise an accomplice with his brethren in the lamentable tragedy of Joseph. And as nothing better is recorded of him, we are apt to think of him as through life the same. But this were hardly fair. Why should not Levi have shared in that softening influence which undoubtedly came on the other brethren? Why may he not have become a true man of God, and transmitted to his tribe the memory and the example of a holy character? Certain it is that we find among his descendants in Egypt some very noble specimens of godliness. The mother of Moses, a daughter of the house of Levi, is a woman of incomparable faith. Moses, her son, is emphatically "the man of God." Aaron, his brother, moved by a Divine influence, goes to the wilderness to find him when the very crisis of oppression seems to indicate that God's time for the deliverance of Israel is drawing nigh. Miriam, his sister, though far from faultless, piously watched his bulrush-cradle, and afterwards led the choir whose praises rose to God in a great volume of thanksgiving after crossing the sea.

The first honour conferred on Levi in connection with religious service was the appointment of Aaron and his sons to the special service of the priesthood (Exodus 28:1-43; umbers 18:1). This did not necessarily involve any spiritual distinction for the whole tribe of which Aaron was a member, nor was that distinction conferred at that time. It was after the affair of the golden calf that the tribe of Levi received this honour. For when Moses, in his holy zeal against that scandal, called upon all who were on the Lord's side to come to him, ''all the sons of Levi gathered themselves unto him" (Exodus 32:26). This seems to imply that that tribe alone held itself aloof from the atrocious idolatry into which even Aaron had been drawn. And apparently it was in connection with this high act of service that Levi was selected as the sacred tribe, and in due time formally substituted for the firstborn in every family ( umbers 3:12, sqq. umbers 8:6 sqq. umbers 18:2 sqq.) From this time the tribe of Levi stood to God in a relation of peculiar honour and sacredness, and had duties assigned to them in harmony with this eminent position.

The tribe of Levi consisted of three main branches, corresponding to Levi's three sons - Kohath, Gershon, and Merari. The Kohathites, though apparently not the oldest (see umbers 3:17) were the most distinguished, Moses and Aaron being of that branch. As Levites, the Kohathites had charge of the ark and its sacred furniture, guarding it at all times, and carrying it from place to place during the journeys of the wilderness. The Gershonites had charge of the tabernacle, with its cords, curtains, and coverings. The sons of Merari had charge of the more solid parts of the tabernacle, "its boards and bars, its pillars and its pins, and all the vessels thereof." Korah, the leader of the rebellion against Moses and Aaron, was,

like them, of the family of Kohath, and the object of his rebellion was to punish what he considered the presumption of the two brothers in giving to Aaron the special honours of a priesthood which, in former days, had belonged alike to all the congregation ( umbers 16:3). We are accustomed to think that the supernatural proofs of the Divine commission to Moses were so overwhelming that it would have been out of the question for any man to challenge them. But many things show that, though we might have thought opposition to Moses impossible, it prevailed to a great extent. The making of the golden calf, the report of the spies and the commotion that followed, the rebellion of Korah, and many other things, prove that the prevalent spirit was usually that of unbelief and rebellion, and that it was only after many signal miracles and signal judgments that Moses was enabled at last to exercise an unchallenged authority. The rationalist idea, that it was enthusiasm for Moses that led the people to follow him out of Egypt, and endure all the hardships of the wilderness, and that there is nothing more in the Exodus than the story of an Eastern nation leaving one country under a trusted leader to settle in another, is one to which the whole tenor of the history offers unqualified contradiction. And not the least valid ground of opposition is the bitter, deadly spirit in which attempts to frustrate Moses were so often made.

Many of the duties of the Levites as detailed in the Pentateuch were duties for the wilderness. After the settlement in Canaan, and the establishment of the tabernacle at Shiloh, these duties would undergo a change. The Levites were not all needed to be about the tabernacle. The Gibeonites indeed had been retained as ''hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord," so that the more laborious part of the work at Shiloh would be done by them. If the Levites had clustered like a swarm of bees around the sacred establishment, loss would have been sustained alike by themselves and by the people. It was desirable, in accordance with the great law of distribution already referred to, that they should be dispersed over the whole country. The men that stood nearest to God, and who were a standing testimony to the superiority of the spiritual over the secular, who were Divine witnesses, indeed, to the higher part of man's nature, as well as to God's preeminent claims, must have failed egregiously of their mission had they been confined to a single city or to the territory of a single tribe. Jacob had foretold both of Simeon and Levi that they would be "divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel." In the case of Levi, the scattering was overruled for good. Designed to point God-wards and heavenwards, the mission of Levi was to remind the people over the whole country that they were not mere earth-worms, created to grub and burrow in the ground, but beings with a nobler destiny, whose highest honour it was to be in communion with God.

The functions of the Levites throughout the country seem to have differed somewhat in successive periods of their history. Here, as in other matters, there was doubtless some development, according as new wants appeared in the spiritual condition of the people, and consequently new obligations for the Levites to fulfil.

When the people fell under special temptations to idolatry, it would naturally fall to the Levites, in connection with the priesthood, to warn them against these

temptations, and strive to keep them faithful to their God. But it does not appear that even the Levites could be trusted to continue faithful. It is a sad and singular fact that a grandson of Moses was one of the first to go astray. The Authorized Version, indeed, says that the young man who became a priest to the Danites when they set up a graven image in the city of Dan, was Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh ( 18:30). But the Revised Version, not without authority, calls him Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses. Here we have a glimpse of two remarkable facts: in the first place, that a grandson of Moses, a Levite, was located in so confined a place that he had to leave it in search of another, ''to sojourn where he could find a place" - so entirely had Moses abstained from steps to secure superior provision for his own family; and, in the second place, that even with his remarkable advantages and relations, this Jonathan, in defiance of the law, was tempted to assume an office of priesthood, and to discharge that office at the shrine of a graven image. We are far indeed from the truth when we suppose that the whole nation of Israel submitted to the law of Moses from the beginning with absolute loyalty, or when we accept the prevalent practice among them at any one period as undoubted evidence of what was then the law.

But let us now turn our attention to the distribution of the Levites as it was planned. We say deliberately "as it was planned," because there is every reason to believe that the plan was not effectually carried out. In no case does there seem to have been such a failure of official arrangements as in the case of Levi. And the reason is not difficult to find. Few of the cities allotted to them were free of Canaanites at the time. To get actual possession of the cities they must have dispossessed the remaining Canaanites. But, scattered as they were, this was peculiarly difficult. And the other tribes seem to have been in no humour to help them. Hence it is that in the early period of the Judges we find Levites wandering here and there seeking for a settlement, and glad of any occupation they could find ( 18:7; 19:1).

The provision made by Joshua for the Levites was that out of all the other tribes, forty-eight cities with their suburbs, including the six cities of refuge, were allotted to them. It is necessary for us here to call to mind how much Canaan, like other Eastern countries and some countries not Eastern, was a land of towns and villages. Cottages and country-houses standing by themselves were hardly known. A house in its own grounds - "a lodge in a garden of cucumbers " - might shelter a man for a time, but could not be his permanent home. The country was too liable to hostile raids for its inhabitants to dwell thus unprotected. Most of the people had their homes in the towns and villages with which their fields were connected. In consequence of this each town had a circuit of land around it, which always fell to the conquerors when the town was taken. And it is this fact that sometimes makes the boundaries of the tribes so difficult to follow, because these boundaries had to embrace all the lands connected with the cities which they embraced. If it be asked, Did the Levites receive as part of their inheritance all the lands adjacent to their cities, the answer is, o. For in that case the only difference between them and the other tribes would have been that the Levites had forty-eight little territories instead of one large possession, and there would have been no ground for the distinction so emphatically made that "the Lord was their inheritance," or ''the sacrifices of the

Lord made by fire."

The cities given to the Levites, even when cleared of Canaanites, were not possessed by Levites alone. We may gather the normal state of affairs from what is said regarding Hebron and Caleb. Hebron was a Levitical city, a city of the priests, a city of refuge; they gave to the Kohathites the city, with the suburbs thereof roundabout; "but the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession " (Joshua 21:11-12). What are called "suburbs," or, as some prefer to render, "cattle drives," extended for two thousand cubits round about the city on every side ( umbers 35:5), and were used only for pasture. It behooved the Levites to have cattle of some kind to supply them with their food, the main part of which, besides fruit, was milk and its produce. But, beyond this, the Levites were not entangled with the business of husbandry. They were left free for more spiritual service. It was their part to raise the souls of the people above the level of earth, and, like the angel in the "Pilgrim's Progress," call on those who might otherwise have worshipped the mud-rake to lift up their eyes to the crown of glory, and accept the heavenly gift.

In fact, the whole function of the Levites, ideally at least, was as Moses sung: -

"And of Levi he said, Let thy Urim and thy Thummim be with thy godly one, Whom thou didst prove at Massah,

With whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah;

Who said of his father, and of his mother, I have not seen him;

either did he acknowledge his brethren,

or knew his own children:

For they have observed Thy word,

And kept Thy covenant.

They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments,

And Israel Thy law:

They shall put incense before Thee,

And whole burnt offering upon Thine altar.

Bless, Lord, his substance,

And accept the work of his hands:

Smite through the loins of them that rise up against him,

And of them that hate him, that they rise not again."

Deuteronomy 33:8-11 (R.V.).

But to come now to the division itself. The Kohathites, or leading family, had no fewer than thirteen cities in the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, and ten more in Ephraim, Dan, and Manasseh. The thirteen in Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon were for the priests; the other ten were for the other branches of the Kohathites. At first the priests, strictly so called, could not occupy them all. But, as the history advances, the priests become more and more prominent, while the Levites as such seem to hold a less and less conspicuous place. In the Psalms, for example, we sometimes find the house of Levi left out when all classes of worshippers are called on to praise the Lord. In the 135th Psalm all are included: -

"O house of Israel, bless ye the Lord: O house of Aaron, bless ye the Lord: O house of Levi, bless ye the Lord: Ye that fear the Lord, bless ye the Lord."

But in the 15th the Levites are left out: -

"O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust ye in the Lord: He is their help and their shield.

Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord: He is their help and their shield."

And in the 18th: -

"Let Israel now say That His mercy endureth for ever. Let the house of Aaron now say That His mercy endureth for ever. Let them now that fear the Lord say That His mercy endureth for ever."

There is this to be said for the region where the priests, the house of Aaron, had their cities, viz., the tribe of Judah, that it maintained its integrity longest of any; nor did it thoroughly succumb to idolatry till the dark days of Manasseh, one of its later kings. But, on the other hand, in ew Testament times, Judaea was the most bigoted part of the country, and the most bitterly opposed to our Lord. And the explanation is, that the true spirit of Divine service had utterly evaporated from among the priesthood, and the miserable spirit of formalism had come in. The living sap of the institution had been turned into stone, and the plant of renown of early days had become a stony fossil. So true is it that the best institutions, when perverted from their true end, become the sources of greatest evil, and the highest gifts of heaven, when seized by the devil and turned to his purposes, become the most efficient instruments of hell.

The other portions of the family of Kohath were distributed in ten cities over the central part of Western Palestine. Some of them were important centres of

influence, such as Bethhoron, Shechem, and Taanach. But the influence of the Levites for good seems to have been feeble in this region, for it was here that Jeroboam reigned, and here that Ahab and Jezebel all but obliterated the worship of Jehovah.

It is commonly believed that Samuel was a member of the tribe of Levi, although there is some confusion in the genealogy as given in 1 Chronicles 6:28; 1 Chronicles 6:34; yet Ramathaim Zophim, his father's place of abode, was not one of the Levitical cities. And Samuel's influence was exerted more on the southern than the central district; for, after the destruction of Shiloh, Mizpeh appears to have been his ordinary residence (1 Samuel 7:6), and afterwards Ramah (1 Samuel 7:17). It would indeed be a pleasant thought that the inefficiency of the Kohathites as a whole was in some measure redeemed by the incomparable service of Samuel. If Samuel was a Levite, he was a noble instance of what may be done by one zealous and consecrated man, amid the all but universal defection of his official brethren.

Ramathaim and Ramah are used interchangeably (1 Samuel 1:1; 1 Samuel 1:19; 1 Samuel 2:11).

The Gershonites were placed in cities in eastern Manasseh, Issachar, Asher, and aphtali; while the Merarites were in Zebulun, and in the transjordanic tribes of Gad and Reuben. They thus garrisoned the northern and eastern districts. Those placed in the north ought to have been barriers against the gross idolatry of Tyre and Sidon, and those in the east, besides resisting the idolatry of the desert tribes, should have held back that of Damascus and Syria. But there is very little to show that the Levites as a whole rose to the dignity of their mission in these regions, or that they formed a very efficient barrier against the idolatry and corruption which they were designed to meet. o doubt they did much to train the people to the outward observance of the law. They would call them to the celebration of the great annual festivals, and of the new moons and other observances that had to be locally celebrated. They would look after cases of ceremonial defilement, and no doubt they would be careful to enjoin payment of the tithes to which they had a claim. They would do their best to maintain the external distinctions in religion, by which the nation was separated from its neighbours. But, except in rare cases, they do not appear to have been spiritually earnest, nor to have done much of that service which Samuel did in the southern part of the country. Externalism and formalism seem to have been their most frequent characteristics; and externalism and formalism are poor weapons when the enemy cometh in like a flood.

And, whatever may have been the usual life and work of the Levites over the country, they never seem to have realized the glory of the distinction divinely accorded to them - ''The Lord is their inheritance." Few, indeed, in any age or country have come to know what is meant by having God for their portion. Unbelief can never grasp that there is a life in God - a real life, so full of enjoyment that all other happiness may be dispensed with; a real property, so rich in every blessing, that the goods and chattels of this world are mere shadows in comparison. Yet that there have been men profoundly impressed by these convictions, in all ages and in

many lands, amid prevailing ungodliness, cannot be denied. How otherwise is such a life as that of St. Bernard or that of St. Francis to be accounted for? Or that of St. Columba and the missionaries of lona? Or, to go farther back, that of St. Paul? There is a magic virtue, or rather a Divine power, in real consecration. "Them that honour Me, I will honour." It is the want of such men that makes our churches feeble. It is our mixing up our own interests with the interests of God's kingdom and refusing to leave self out of view while we profess to give ourselves wholly to God, that explains the slowness of our progress. If the Levites had all been consecrated men, idolatry and its great brood of corruptions would never have spread over the land of Israel. If all Christian ministers were like their Master, Christianity would spread like wildfire, and in a very little time the light of salvation would brighten the globe.

ote. - In this chapter we have accepted the statements of the Pentateuch regarding the Levites as they stand. We readily own that there are difficulties not a few connected with the received view. The modern critical theory that maintains that the Levitical order was a much later institution would no doubt remove many of these difficulties, but only by creating other difficulties far more serious. Besides, the hypothesis of Wellhausen that the tribe of Levi was destroyed with Simeon at the invasion of Canaan - having no foundation to rest on, except the assumption that the prophecy ascribed to Jacob was written at a later date - is ludicrously inadequate to sustain the structure made to rest on it. or is it conceivable that, after the captivity, the priests should have been able to make the people believe a totally different account of the history of one of the tribes from that which had previously been received. It is likewise incredible that the Levites should have been "annihilated " or "extinguished " in the days of Joshua, without a single allusion in the history to so terrible a fact. How inconsistent with the concern expressed when the tribe of Benjamin was in danger of extinction ( 21:17). The loss of a tribe was like the loss of a limb; it would have marred essentially the symmetry of the nation.

BI 1-45, "Unto the Levites . . . these cities.

Ministers liberally treated

The liberality both of God and of His people to the ministers of God is here very marvellous, in giving forty-eight cities to this one tribe of Levi, which was the least of all the tribes, yet have they the most cities given to them (Jos_21:4; Jos_21:10; Jos_21:41), because it was the Lord’s pleasure to have this tribe provided for in an honourable manner, seeing He Himself took upon Him to be their portion and made choice of them for His peculiar service; therefore did He deal thus bountifully with His ministers, partly to put honour upon those whom He foresaw many would be prone to despise, and partly that by this liberality they, being freed from worldly distractions, might more entirely devote themselves to God’s service and to the instruction of souls. (C. Ness.)

Ministers wisely located

God provided for the residence of His ministers in most ample extent and number, and in a way suited to the spiritual instruction and benefit of the nation. In temple service

they were round about the habitation of His holiness; and yet, in their ministerial instructions, dispersed over the whole land. How exact a fulfilment of dying Jacob’s prediction, and that even though mercy changed the curse into a blessing: “I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.” What an important appointment! and how adapted to the communication and diffusion of Divine truth for their lips, as the messengers of the Lord of hosts, were to keep knowledge, and at their mouth the people were to seek the law! It is no common privilege, under the more exalted and distinguished dispensation of the gospel, that the ministers of salvation are not removed into a corner, but that as servants of the most high God they have their stations assigned them, as may best promote the increase and instruction of the Church. These are the stars which He holds in His right hand, and which, great in wisdom and power, He numbers and calls by their names, What holy and heavenly light and influence are they ordained to impart in their several spheres! Without them the Christian Church would soon be involved in the most degrading and destructive ignorance, and overwhelmed with the miseries of corruption and error. Who that admits the importance of their services would not yield room to them as being equally a privilege as a duty. Their residence is to be esteemed a mercy, and no intrusion. Thus it has appeared that the Lord has ever paid special regard to His ministers, and as here enjoined upon His people, in obligation the most reasonable, to provide them habitations as well as support. (W. Seaton.)

There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken.

Divine faithfulness

I. The faithfulness of God in accomplishing his engagements toward the tribes of Israel.

II. The faithfulness of God to his church collectively in subsequent engagements.

III. The faithfulness of God in his engagements to individual believers. I believe there is no person experiencing the power of religion who has not had an increasing evidence of the faithfulness of God in verifying His promises on which He has caused him to hope. He has found—notwithstanding the dark appearances of Divine providence—he has found that sort of satisfaction which he was taught to expect from the exercise of faith and confidence in Jesus Christ and obedience to Him. He has found, in seasons of pain and difficulty, that kind of assistance on which he was taught to rely. The faithfulness of God in performing His promises at present must, however, be in a great degree obscured by the darkness of our present state; for everything is in perpetual motion. No one can understand the nature of a beautiful building in the rubbish, or, while it is actually rising, in the midst of the complicated instruments used in its erection, but we must wait till it is finished before we can form a just estimate of its beauty. And with respect to that great hope of which the possession of Canaan was but a shadow and figure—the possession of the heavenly inheritance—in a very short time every real believer will be able to put his seal to the truth of the Divine promise. Let us rejoice that we have a covenant of God, and a covenant ordered in all things and sure, which is all our salvation and all our desire. And first, by way of improvement, let us observe the propriety of remembering the way in which the Lord God hath led us. If we consider the trials and sorrows of the present life as a part of that holy dispensation, in that proportion shall we be disposed to glorify God. If we trace the hand of man in these events, this may produce disquietude; but if we could extend our view to the furthest limit, all this would frequently be matter of gratitude, and we should be enabled to give thanks to God in everything. Let us look forward to that state in which we shall have His kindness fully

displayed. (R. Hall, M. A.)

The triumphant record of God’s faithfulness

Verses 43-45 are the trophy reared on the battlefield, like the lion of Marathon, which the Greeks set on its sacred soil. But the only name inscribed on this monument is Jehovah’s. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. “The help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself.” The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honour that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humbler private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the “philosophy” of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel’s victory. That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the Church in the world. The difference between the “miraculous” conquest of Canaan and the “ordinary” facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, His acts. In the field of human affairs, as in the realm of nature, God is immanent, though in the former His working is complicated by the mysterious power of man’s will to set itself in antagonism to His; while yet, in manner insoluble to us, His will is supreme. The very powers which are arrayed against Him are His gift, and the issue which they finally subserve is His appointment. It does not need that we should be able to pierce to the bottom of the bottomless in order to attain and hold fast by the great conviction that there is no power but of God, and that from Him are all things and to Him are all things. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Divine fidelity acknowledged

We may note, too, in these verses, the threefold repetition of the one thought, of God’s punctual and perfect fulfilment of His word. He “gave unto Israel all the land which He sware to give”; “He gave them rest . . . according to all that He sware”; “there failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken.” It is the joy of thankful hearts to compare the promise with the reality, to lay the one upon the other, as it were, and to declare how precisely their, outlines correspond. The finished building is exactly according to the plans drawn long before. God gives us the power of checking His work, and we are unworthy to receive His gifts if we do not take delight in marking and proclaiming how completely He has fulfilled His contract. It is no small part of Christian duty, and a still greater part of Christian blessedness, to do this. Many a fulfilment passes unnoticed, and many a joy, which might be sacred and sweet as a token of love from His own hand, remains common and unhallowed, because we fail to see that it is a fulfilled promise. The eye that is trained to watch for God’s being as good as His word will never have long to wait for proofs that He is. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” And to such an one faith will become easier, being sustained by experience; and a present thus manifestly studded with indications of God’s faithfulness will merge into a future still fuller of these. For it does not need that we should wait for the end of the war to have many a token that His every word is true. The struggling soldier can say, “No good thing has failed of all that the Lord has spoken.” We look, indeed, for completer fulfilment when the fighting is done; but there are brooks by the way for the warriors in the thick of the

fight, of which they drink, and, refreshed, lift up the head. We need not postpone this glad acknowledgment till we can look back and down from the land of peace on the completed campaign, but may rear this trophy on many a field, whilst still we look for another conflict to-morrow. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Supreme Worker

We read that on a pyramid in Egypt the name and sounding titles of the king in whose reign it was erected were blazoned on the plaster facing, but beneath that transitory inscription the name of the architect was hewn, imperishable, in the granite, and stood out when the plaster dropped away. So, when all the short-lived records which ascribe the events of the Church’s progress to her great men have perished, the one name of the true Builder will shine out, and to the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Let us not rely on our own skill, courage, talents, orthodoxy, or methods, nor try to build tabernacles for the witnessing servants beside the central one for the supreme Lord, but ever seek to deepen our conviction that Christ, and Christ only, gives all their powers to all, and that to Him, and Him only, is all victory to be ascribed. It is an elementary and simple truth; but if we really lived in its power we should go into the battle with more confidence, and come out of it with less self-gratulation. (A. Maclaren, D. D.).

2 at Shiloh in Canaan and said to them, “The Lord commanded through Moses that you give us towns to live in, with pasturelands for our livestock.”

GILL, "And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan,.... Where the tabernacle was fixed, at or near which the above persons met to cast lots for the division of the land to the seven tribes that had not received their inheritance:

saying, the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle; this command is extant in Num_35:2.

HE RY, "JAMISO , "BE SO , "Joshua 21:2. The Lord commanded — Observe: the maintenance of ministers is not an arbitrary thing, left purely to the good-will of the people. o: as

the God of Israel commanded that the Levites should be provided for, so hath the Lord Jesus ordained (and a perpetual ordinance it is) “that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”

WHEDO , "2. With the suburbs thereof — The area of these suburbs is laid down in umbers 35:4-5, but so obscurely that great diversity of computation has arisen among expositors. The suburbs were to reach a thousand cubits from the wall of the city on each of the four sides, and yet the measure on each side of the city was to be two thousand cubits. This Keil explains, as in the following diagram by picturing the city and its suburbs in squares, with the city in the midst, and understanding the two thousand cubits as the length of each outer side of the suburbs, apart from the walls of the cities, which latter, of course, might vary in size. Or we may understand with Maimonides that the two thousand cubits were added to the one thousand as “fields of the suburbs,” (Leviticus 25:34,) and lay outside the suburbs proper.

TRAPP, "Joshua 21:2 And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle.

Ver 2. The Lord commanded.] He left not his Levites to the will and devotion of the people: for then they should have had Micah’s allowance, [ 17:10] prisoners’ pittances, such as will neither keep them alive, nor suffer them to die. Spoliantur parochiae et scholae, non aliter ac si tame necare nos velint, is Luther’s complain: they keep us so poor as if they meant to famish us all. Therefore the Lord commanded, as here; lest men should deal by his Levites, as Louis XI of France did by his chaplains, to whom he allowed twenty shillings a month, whereas to his barber, John Cottier, he allowed ten thousand crowns a month.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:2

At Shiloh. Another instance of exact accuracy. Shiloh was now the place of assembly in Israel (see Joshua 18:1). The Lord commanded. The command is given in umbers 35:1-34. We have here, therefore, another quotation from the books of Moses. If we refer to it we find how exactly the precepts were carried out. First, the six cities of refuge were to be appointed, and then forty-two more were to be added to them. Calvin, not noticing this, has complained that this narrative is not in its proper place, and that it should have been inserted before the details in umbers 20:1-29. The very reverse is the fact. These cities of refuge are included, in what follows, among the number of forty-eight cities in all, assigned to the Levites. Suburbs. See Joshua 14:4. And so throughout the chapter.

PETT, "Verse 2‘And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, “YHWH commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their suburbs for our cattle.” ’The approach would probably be made before the Tent of Meeting with due solemnity. The Levites had a responsibility to Israel in respect of guidance in

accordance with the Law, overseeing the tithes, and generally observing that the Law was fulfilled. In return they had to be given cities to dwell in and land for their cattle, but not land to plant and sow.

3 So, as the Lord had commanded, the Israelites gave the Levites the following towns and pasturelands out of their own inheritance:

CLARKE, "And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites - They cheerfully obeyed the Divine command, and cities for habitations were appointed to them out of the different tribes by lot, that it might as fully appear that God designed them their habitations, as he designed the others their inheritances.

GILL, "And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance,.... Knowing full well there was such a command, made no objection to their motion, but freely gave them cities out of the portion of inheritance allotted to them; this they did

at the commandment of the Lord, and in obedience to it, even gave these cities and suburbs; after mentioned: this was done by the tribes themselves; as there were a certain number fixed by the commandment of God, they agreed among themselves how many and what cities should be given out of each tribe; and then lots were cast for them by Joshua, what and which cities should be appropriated to their several divisions, as the Kohathites that sprang from Aaron, and the rest of them that did not, and the Gershonites and Merarites, as follows.

COFFMA , "A SUMMARY OF THE CITIES ASSIG ED

"And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of Jehovah, these cities with their suburbs.

"And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites: and the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, and by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities.

"And the rest of the children of Kohath had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, ten

cities.

"And the children of Gershon had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Issachar, and out of the tribe of Asher, and out of the tribe of aphtali, and out of the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen cities.

"The children of Merari according to their families had out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities.

"And the Children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as Jehovah commanded by Moses."

"Thirteen cities ..." (Joshua 21:4) The simple fact that the children of Aaron at that time could have numbered only a few families shows this assignment of `thirteen cities' to them to be purely imaginary."[6] Again, this is due to a failure of the critic to read the Bible. "It appears (1 Chronicles 24) that the two surviving sons of Aaron, Eleazar and Ithamar, had twenty-four sons!"[7] The same author declared that, "Their number by this time might well have been several thousand."[8] Besides that, as Plummer noted: (1) the cities, at first, were probably not inhabited exclusively by priests; (2) all of these cities had not yet been taken from the Canaanites; and (3) the cities themselves, in some cases, were very small.[9]

The Aaronic priests are all located within the area of Judah and Benjamin. The working of providence is seen in this, because all of the priests drew cities in that area which, in time, would become the center of Israel's worship in Jerusalem. Cook thought this was because God "chose Jerusalem beforetime as the site of His Temple."[10] We partially disagree with this, because it appears from 2 Samuel 7 that a Temple was never in God's purpose at all. God no doubt intended that the Tabernacle should continue to be the location of God's altar after the entry into Canaan. The Temple was David's idea, and, although God accommodated to it, we believe the purpose of the providential placement of these priests in the Jerusalem area was to have them near the Tabernacle, not the Temple.

BE SO , "Joshua 21:3. The children of Israel gave — Probably they gave the Levites promiscuously such cities as God commanded, and the lot appropriated them to their several houses or families. Out of their inheritance — That is, out of their several possessions, that the burden might be equally divided; and that the Levites, being dispersed among the several tribes, according to Jacob’s prediction, (Genesis 49:7,) might more easily and effectually teach the Israelites God’s law and judgments, which they were engaged to do, Deuteronomy 33:10; and that the people might upon all occasions resort to them, and inquire the meaning of the law at their mouths. And suburbs — ot only the use, but the absolute dominion of them, as is manifest both from Joshua 21:11-12, where a distinction is made between the city and suburbs of Hebron, and the fields and villages thereof; (the former being given to the Levites, the latter to Caleb;) and from the return of these cities in the jubilee unto the Levites as to their proper owners, Leviticus 25:33-34.

TRAPP, "Joshua 21:3 And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, at the commandment of the LORD, these cities and their suburbs.

Ver. 3. These cities and their suburbs.] In their cities others dwelt with them: for how could they subsist without those of other professions? See Ezra 2:70. And as for the suburbs, they were for pasture, pleasure, and other country commodities, not for tillage; for the Levites were not to have any such employment. [ umbers 18:20-24]

PETT, "Verse 3‘And the children of Israel gave to the Levites out of their inheritance, in accordance with the commandment of YHWH, these cities with their suburbs.’The response of the people was immediate, and cities were allocated by lot to the Levites. There was no guarantee that those cities were all available to dwell in. Like the general allocations they had in many cases still to be possessed. It was an act of faith, just like the allocation of the land, that God would give them their inheritance.

The Levites are regularly described as ‘sojourning’ in the land (Deuteronomy 18:6; Judges 17:7-8; Judges 19:1). They were not to have permanent possession like the other tribes for their inheritance was YHWH ( umbers 18:20; 23:62). They had to have places to live in throughout the tribes so that they could fulfil their function, but these were not to be seen as their own but as lent by God. This was the ideal. And at the great feasts theirs was the responsibility of ministering at the Tabernacle ( umbers 18:22 compare Deuteronomy 18:7), although the priesthood itself was restricted to the ‘family’ of Aaron (for example, as well as in Leviticus 8 and regularly in umbers, priests and Levites were clearly represented as distinct from each other in Deuteronomy 18:3-8). It is quite probable that suitably dedicated people could be adopted into the tribe, and indeed into the family of Aaron, as considered appropriate (e.g. Samuel), just as they could be adopted into any of the tribes, but all was no doubt done ‘before YHWH’.

Allocated along with the cities provided for the Levites was to be a certain amount of land for their cattle ( umbers 35:4-5), an ideal probably never fully realised. The distances were ideal representations and not to be treated literally. The idea would seem to be that the city was to be seen as within a square each side of which was 2000 cubits, similar to idea of the square of the Holy of Holies. Thus the first 1000 cubits of land around the city belonged to the Levites. They indicated the ‘holiness’ of the cities as being dwelt in by the representatives of YHWH (compare Joshua 3:4). But this land could never be sold (Leviticus 25:34).

What precisely was meant by the giving of the cities is not absolutely clear. They were certainly not given the cities outright with the inhabitants moving out to make way for them. What was probably given to them was a portion of the city, or selected houses within the city (see Leviticus 25:32-33 which only makes sense if Levite houses were in general walled cities), and land close to the city walls. (Certainly Shechem did not become a totally levitical city - Judges 9. or could that idea have been in mind in the short, or even middle, term in view of its nature). It is

possible that there was in mind in the distant future that eventually most would become wholly levitical cities.

That the cities were spread throughout the land was necessary because the Levites represented the redeemed firstborn of the children of Israel (Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:13 with umbers 3:40-44) as separated to the service of YHWH.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:3

Out of their inheritance. Out of that of Israel (see note on Joshua 21:1). These cities. The number was forty-eight, i.e; four times twelve. Bahr ('Symbolik des Alten Testaments,' 1:221) remarks on the symbolical meaning of this number. He compares it, first, to the twelve tribes marching in four detachments, the ark of God and its guard in the centre (see umbers 2:1-34). Four, he says, is the number of the world, and three the sign of God, and twelve of the combination of the two. Thus we are reminded of the heavenly city which "lieth four-square," which has "twelve foundations of precious stones," "twelve gates of pearls, and at the gates twelve angels," and the names of "the twelve tribes of Israel" written thereupon, and wherein was "the tree of life," with its "twelve manner of fruits," which were "yielded every month" (Revelation 21:12, Revelation 21:14, Revelation 21:16, Revelation 21:19, Revelation 21:21; Revelation 22:2).

PI K, ""And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, at the commandment of the Lord, these cities and their suburbs" (Josh. 21:3). Thus was the priestly tribe fully provided for through its brethren by Divine ordinance; and it is blessed to mark how particularly the Holy Spirit has placed it upon record that they discharged this obligation as an act of obedience unto God. They might have demurred at being called upon to relinquish some of the places which they had fought hard to obtain, but they raised no objection and duly performed their duty when reminded of the Divine will. In like manner, Christians are bidden to communicate unto those who care for their spiritual interests, and to do so at God’s commandment. Equally striking is it to observe how that the portion received by the Levites was a gift—so referred to in both verses 2 and 3. This act of giving was designed by the Lord to counteract that selfish spirit and attachment to a present world which is common to all of us. The same principle is illustrated again in Romans 15:27: "their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their [Israel’s] spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things."

The principle which was to regulate the allocating of the Levitical cities by their brethren was clearly defined in umbers 35:8, "And the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel: from them that have many ye shall give many: but from them that have few ye shall give few; every one shall give of his cities unto the Levites according to his inheritance which he inheriteth." Thus was each tribe accorded the opportunity of making grateful acknowledgment unto

the Lord of what He had so graciously bestowed upon them, for what they gave unto the Levites was accepted as given to Him, and thereby were their possessions sanctified to them—some of the best and largest of the cities being freely donated. The several tribes were not assessed uniformly, but according to the extent of their possessions. The equity of such an arrangement is at once apparent. The same was duly executed, for out of Judah’s and Simeon’s lots (the most extensive) nine cities were given, whereas out of the other tribes only four cities were taken from each (Josh. 31). In like manner, ew Testament saints are exhorted, "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him" (1 Cor. 16:2), i.e. a definite proportion of his income.

If it be true on the one side that a mercenary priesthood has been notorious for its greedy grasping of wealth and temporal power; on the other side, only too frequently many of the most devoted and self-sacrificing of Christ’s servants have received the scantiest acknowledgment. As Barnes remarked, "The poor beast that has served the man and his family in the days of his vigor is often turned out in old age to die; and something like this sometimes occurs in the treatment of ministers of the Gospel. The conduct of a people, generous in many other respects, is often unaccountable in their treatment of their pastors: and one of the lessons which ministers often have to learn, like their Master, by bitter experience, is the ingratitude of those in whose welfare they have toiled and prayed and wept." Yet that is far from being always the case, as this writer can thankfully testify. For upwards of forty years the Lord has moved His stewards to minister freely and liberally to his temporal needs: so that we too can reply to His question "lacked ye anything? othing" (Luke 22:35). o good thing has He withheld from us.

The method followed by Israel in selecting the Levitical cities appears to have been something like this. First, the court, after duly considering the size of its inheritance, appointed how many cities should be taken out of each tribe. Then the "fathers of the tribes" agreed among themselves which cities were most suitable. After that had been settled, the forty-eight cities were divided into four groups, for the four branches of the Levitical tribe. Lots were cast to determine the distribution of them. The sons of Levi were Gershom, Kohath, Merari. From Kohath descended Moses, Aaron and Miriam (1 Chron. 6:1-3). The "children of Aaron" (Josh. 21:4) were not only Levites, but priests too, whose more immediate work was to serve at the altar. It should be duly noted that though this was the least numerous of the four branches, yet, in keeping with the prominence of the priesthood throughout the book of Joshua, "the first lot" (v. 10) was for the children of Aaron, and thus was honor placed again upon this Divine institution. It is further to be observed that more cities were assigned unto them than to any other branch of Levi.

It should perhaps be pointed out that the term "city" in Scripture does not signify (as it does with us today) a large town having a corporation, but simply "an enclosed space "—see Genesis 4:17, for the first mention. The "suburbs," as pastures for the cattle, extended for nearly a mile in every direction ( um. 35:5). In appointing the larger number of cities for the children of Aaron we see a proof of the Divine foreknowledge, for those who have made a thorough study of this detail

judge that they increased more than any of the other three families, therefore larger accommodation would be required for their descendants in the future. That their cities were taken from that part of Canaan which had been given to the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin (Josh. 21:4) was also profoundly significant, illustrating as it did the wise disposings of Providence, for that was the territory which lay nearest to Jerusalem, which centuries later was to be the site of the temple, and the headquarters of Judaism. That was the place which had been chosen in the Divine counsels where God should put His name. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18)!

In verse 8 the statement is repeated, "And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses." This is to intimate that all was done by Divine appointment and in obedience unto God’s will. There is a touching detail recorded in verse 11 which we must not overlook, for there we are told that the city of Hebron became the possession of the children of Aaron. It will be remembered that this was the city which had been given to Caleb by the commandment of the Lord (Josh. 15:13). It seems, then, that he had personally made it a voluntary present unto the priests, thereby setting an example before his fellows of noble generosity and devotion to the cause of Jehovah. How he puts to shame many church members of today who are so neglectful of the maintenance of Christ’s servants! Those who are indifferent to the temporal welfare of His ministers cannot be in communion with Him who notices the fall of every sparrow, or recognize the holy privileges of being "fellow-helpers to the Truth" (3 John 1:8). May writer and reader ever act in this manner "according to the commandment of the Lord."

4 The first lot came out for the Kohathites, according to their clans. The Levites who were descendants of Aaron the priest were allotted thirteen towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin.

BAR ES, "Thirteen cities - This number is said to be too great for the single family of Aaron. But it appears 1 Chr. 24 that the two surviving sons of Aaron, Eleazar

and Ithamar, had together 24 sons, the heads of the priestly families. Since Aaron was 123 years old when he died Num_33:39, his sons’ grandchildren and great grandchildren were no doubt living in the elapsing years of Joshua’s course, and had to he provided with dwellings. They might altogether number several thousands. The “cities” of Canaan were for the most part small; as is manifest from the astonishing number of them in proportion to the area of the land, more particularly in the south, where the portion of the priests was situated. The priests or Levites would not occupy the whole of the dwellings in any city, nor all its “fields,” nor necessarily and always all its “villages” (compare Jos_21:12). Non-Levites, to whom the cultivation of their land, and other secular concerns, were entrusted, no doubt resided in the Levitical cities or their precincts. It appears, further, that several of the cities here enumerated were only wrested from the Canaanites at a later date.

CLARKE, "Out of the tribe of Judah - Simeon, and - Benjamin, thirteencities - These tribes furnished more habitations to the Levites in proportion than any of the other tribes, because they possessed a more extensive inheritance; and Moses had commanded, Num_35:8, From them that have many, ye shall give many; and from them that have few, ye shall give few: every one shall give of his cities unto the Levites, according to his inheritance. It is worthy of remark, that the principal part of this tribe, whose business was to minister at the sanctuary, which sanctuary was afterwards to be established in Jerusalem, had their appointment nearest to that city; so that they were always within reach of the sacred work which God had appointed them.

GILL, "And the lot came out for the family of the Kohathites,.... The first lot that was drawn out of the pot or urn was for the descendants of Kohath, a son of Levi:

and the children of Aaron the priest, which were of the Levites; who descended from Amram, the eldest son of Kohath, and these were not only Levites, but priests: these

had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of Simeon,

and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities; which are after mentioned by name; and as these were priests, whose business was to serve in the temple, and at the altar, the cities assigned them by the lot, were, by the wise disposal of divine Providence, ordered them out of those tribes which lay nearest to Jerusalem; the place God had chosen to put his name in, where the temple would be built, and the altars erected for sacrifices and incense.

JAMISO , "the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites— The Levites were divided into Kohathites, Gershonites, and Merarites. Among the former the family of Aaron were exclusively appointed to the priesthood, and all the rest were ranked in the common order of Levites. The first lot was drawn by the Kohathites; and the first of theirs again by the priests, to whom thirteen cities were granted, and ten to the rest of the Kohathites (Jos_21:5); thirteen to the Gershonites (Jos_21:6), and twelve to the Merarites (Jos_21:7).

K&D, "Jos_21:4

The first lot came out for the families of Kohath, and among these again for the sons of Aaron, i.e., the priests. They received thirteen towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. “This did not happen by chance; but God, according to His wonderful counsel, placed them just in that situation which He had determined to select for His own temple” (Calvin).

CALVI , "4.And the lot came out for the families, etc Here is first described the number of cities of which we shall have to speak by and bye. Secondly, it is distinctly said that the lot fell out to the children of Aaron in the tribe of Judah. This did not happen fortuitously, because God in his admirable counsel placed them in that locality where he had determined to choose a temple for himself. Thirdly, the narrative proceeds to give the exact names of the cities, of which the first mentioned is Hebron, of which Caleb, with great equanimity, allowed himself to be deprived. Should any one object that the first city of all that ought to have been given them was Jerusalem, where they were to have their future station, it is easy to answer, that moderate sized cities were delivered to them as their condition required. Moreover, Jerusalem was not then subjugated, as it continued under the power of the Jebusites. In short, it would have been absurd to assign a royal seat to priests. And their religion and faith was the better proved by this, that they migrated of their own accord from their native soil to devote their attention to sacred things. For no priest performed the office without becoming a stranger. Their weakness, however, was so far indulged by giving them a grant of neighboring cities, that they might not have the fatigue of a long journey in going to perform their function. Moreover, the giving of thirteen cities for a habitation to one family, and that not very numerous, confirms what I have elsewhere said, that the other tribes possessed very many cities, (175) of which no mention is made; in a short time this will be more certainly confirmed.

BE SO , "Verse 4Joshua 21:4. Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin — Which three tribes were nearest the temple, where their business lay. Thirteen cities — For though the priests were now few enough for one city, yet respect was to be had to their succeeding numbers; this division being made for all future generations. And seeing the Levites might sell their houses until the jubilee, (Leviticus 25:33,) much more might they let them; and therefore it is probable their cities were not long uninhabited, many being inclined to dwell with them, by virtue of relations contracted with them, or out of respect to the service of God, and the good of their souls.

COKE, "Verse 4Ver. 4. Thirteen cities— Providence caused to fall to the portion of the Kohathites, (i.e. to the branch of the house of Kohath, and of the whole tribe of Levi, which alone could pretend to the priesthood,) all those cities nearest to Jerusalem, in which the divine worship was one day to be fixed. By this plan the priests were, as much as it was possible, within reach of the regular performance of the service at the house of the Lord, and enabled to repair thither conveniently, each in his turn.

REFLECTIO S.—As the Levites were to have cities in all the tribes, they wait till the land is divided, and now put in their claim, founded on the divine appointment. ote; (1.) What we pray for, pleading the promise, we may be confident shall be granted. (2.) Provision for a gospel ministry is a Divine institution. They who are backward to support it, not only defraud men, but rob God. (3.) The Levites were last provided for: worldly interests must be among the least and last concerns of a godly minister.

Their plea was immediately complied with, and each tribe, according to its extent, assigned a proportionable number of their cities, to make up the complement of forty-eight, which was God's appointment. These, with their suburbs, and a space of circumjacent land, were allotted them; and being thus dispersed through the tribes, they were a general blessing.

WHEDO , "4. Kohathites — The first of the families of the Levites among whom the family of Aaron were exclusively appointed to the priesthood. These by virtue of their office had the precedence in the assignment of the lots, and received thirteen cities in contiguous territory; the rest of the Kohathites ten cities, (Joshua 21:5,) in tribes also adjoining. There was a divine prescience displayed in so locating the priests that in the future great schism of the State under Rehoboam the seceding tribes found themselves destitute of the divinely-appointed priesthood.

TRAPP, "Joshua 21:4 And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites: and the children of Aaron the priest, [which were] of the Levites, had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of Simeon, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities.

Ver. 4. Out of the tribe of Judah, &c.] The priests, by a sweet providence, were placed in those three tribes that were nearest to the tabernacle and temple, that they might do their work with more ease to themselves and content to the people.

ELLICOTT, "Verses 4-8(4-8) The order of the distribution—viz., (1) to priests, (2) to Kohathites, (3) to Gershonites, (4) to Merarites—is in strict agreement with the order of priority observed in the exodus. In the camp of Israel there were two squares surrounding the tabernacle: an inner square of priests and Levites, an outer square of the tribes of Israel, three on each side. The inner square was arranged thus:—The priests, with Moses and Aaron, on the east, by the entrance of the tabernacle; the Kohathites on the south, the Gershonites on the west, and the Merarites on the north. On the march the priests were the chief officers of this portion of the army. The Kohathites carried the sacred vessels, the Gershonites the curtains and various fabrics of the tent and tabernacle, and the Merarites the bars and boards. When they received their inheritances in Palestine, the same relative order was preserved.

PETT, "Verse 4-5The Cities Allocated to Kohath.

Joshua 21:4

‘And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites, and the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities.’The first lot that was drawn out of the pot or urn was for the descendants of Kohath, a son of Levi (Exodus 6:16). We are not told the procedures, nor whether the actual cities were chosen by lot, or whether the lot was simply to determine which of the cities was occupied by whom. The emphasis is on the fact that all was done in accordance with the will of YHWH.

The children of Aaron received thirteen cities, and these were in Judah, Simeon and Benjamin. There would certainly not be sufficient children of Aaron at this stage to fully occupy these cities, even if that had been likely. Clearly here again we are dealing with portions of cities, and dwelling rights. Their portion was given in what seemed at the time the most secure part of the land with access to the centre of the land so that they would always be relatively near the sanctuary wherever it was situated.

Judah was the obvious choice for the sons of Aaron. It had been first to establish itself and was the most surely settled of all the tribes. It is significant that they were not allocated dwelling rights in Jerusalem, which demonstrates that at the stage that this was written there was no conception that Jerusalem would finally become the central sanctuary. There were many Israelites who did dwell in their own section of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21) and other cities were allocated which were not in Israel’s full possession.

Joshua 21:5

‘And the rest of the children of Kohath had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh, ten cities.’These were Levites ‘descended’ from Kohath but not descended from the line of Aaron and were spread throughout Ephraim, Dan and Manasseh. The very lack of the presence of priests in the other areas demonstrates why, as things deteriorated covenant-wise, Levites began to be treated as something like priests, especially as they received tithes and would have to give guidance on the slaughter of animals and suchlike matters and on minor interpretations of the Law.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:4

And the lot came out. As in the distribution of the land among the tribes, so in the division of the cities among the tribes of Levi, the whole matter was referred to the judgment of God. Thus solemnly placed in His hands, the division would not afterwards become the occasion of jealousy or dispute. The division was first made between the descendants of the three sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari (see Exodus 6:16-25), and then, as regards the Kohathites, between the priests, the

descendants of Aaron, and the rest of the Levites. We have remarked above (Joshua 19:50) on the disinterestedness of Joshua. We have now to remark on the same characteristic as displayed by Moses. There was no attempt on the part of Moses to "found a family," the object of ambition with most men, whether kings or private persons possessed of wealth. o special privileges belonged to his descendants. They merged in the undistinguished herd of the Levites generally. In this Moses contrasts favourably with most public men in our own day; he stands out prominently before nearly all the great leaders and conquerors before or even after the Christian era. The same may be said of Joshua, his successor. Cincinnatus may be in some measure compared with them, but as a dictator simply in time of danger, his power was by no means so absolute, nor were his temptations so great as those of the two successive leaders of the Israelites. Thirteen cities. It has been contended by Maurer and others that this number of cities was largely in excess of what could possibly be required for the descendants of Aaron in so short a time. But we have to consider

5 The rest of Kohath’s descendants were allotted ten towns from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan and half of Manasseh.

BAR ES, "The non-priestly Kohathites had been diminished by the destruction of Korah and his company Num. 16. On comparing Num_26:57 following with Num_3:27ff, two of the families of the Kohathites seem to have disappeared altogether. Hence, it is not surprising that the rest of the Kohathites were sufficiently accommodated in ten cities.

CLARKE, "And the rest of the children of Kohath - That is, the remaining part of that family that were not priests, for those who were priests had their lot in the preceding tribes. Those, therefore, of the family of Kohath, who were simply Levites, and not of the priests or Aaron’s family, (see Jos_21:10), had their habitations in Ephraim, Dan, and the half tribe of Manasseh. It has been asked in what sense did the Levites possess those cities, seeing they had no inheritance? To which it may be answered that it is not likely the Levites had the exclusive property of the cities in which they dwelt, for it is evident that the other Israelites dwelt among them. We know, says Calmet, by history, that the cities of the Levites were almost entirely filled with Israelites of other tribes. For

instance, Gibeah of Benjamin, which is here given to the Levites, Jos_21:17, was always peopled by the Benjamites, as appears from the history of the Levite, whose wife was so horribly abused by them; Jdg_19:22-27. Saul and all his family dwelt in the same city; and David and his court spent the first years of his reign at Hebron, which was also a city of the Levites, Jos_21:10. It appears, therefore, that they had no other property in those cities than merely the right to certain houses, which they might sell, but always with the right of perpetual redemption, for they could finally alienate nothing; and if the possessor of such a house, having sold it, did not redeem it at the year of jubilee, it reverted to the Levites. And as to their lands for their cattle, which extended two thousand cubits without the city, these they were not permitted to sell: they were considered as the Lord’s property. See Lev_25:32-34 (note), and the notes there. It is therefore very likely that, in the first instance, the Levites had simply the right to choose, in all the cities assigned them, the houses in which they were to dwell, and that those of the tribe to which the city belonged occupied all the other dwellings. There is also reason to believe that in process of time, when the families of the Levites increased, they had more dwellings assigned to them, which were probably built at the public expense. We may also observe that the Levites were not absolutely bound to live in these and no other cities: for when the tabernacle was at Nob, priests and Levites dwelt there, see 1Sa_21:1, etc.; and when the worship of God was established at Jerusalem, multitudes both of priests and Reviles dwelt there, though it was no Levitical city: as did the courses of priests afterwards at Jericho. This was a circumstance which Moses had foreseen, and for which he had provided. See Deu_18:6, etc.

GILL, "And the rest of the children of Kohath,.... Which did not descend from him in the line of Amram and Aaron, but of Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, who were not priests, but Levites:

had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh, ten cities; these other sort of Kohathites had their cities in tribes next to the other three where the Kohathites that were priests had theirs.

K&D, "Jos_21:5

The rest of the Kohathites, i.e., the descendants of Moses, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, received ten towns from Ephraim, Dan, and half Manasseh.

BE SO ,"Joshua 21:5. Children of Kohath — Who were of Aaron’s family. Ephraim, Dan, and Manasseh — Which tribes were nearest to the three former, and so the Kohathites are placed next to their brethren the Aaronites. Ten cities —Fewer than they gave out of the three former tribes, because their inheritance was less than the former.

TRAPP, "Joshua 21:5 And the rest of the children of Kohath [had] by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh, ten cities.

Ver. 5. And the rest of the children of Kohath.] Thus the Levites were dispersed throughout the land - as salt is sprinkled upon meat, to keep it from putrifying; "ye

are the salt of the earth" [Matthew 5:13] - for instruction of the people; and herein that malediction, Genesis 49:7, was turned into a benediction. It were happy if every congregation had an able minister. To many churches here at the first Reformation, for want of preachers, readers were sent; whence one of the martyrs wished that every able minister might have ten congregations committed to his charge till further provision could be made.

6 The descendants of Gershon were allotted thirteen towns from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, aphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.

GILL, "And the children of Gershon had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Issachar,.... These were Levites who descended from Gershon, the eldest son of Levi, and had their cities by lot assigned them in tribes at a greater distance, not only out of Issachar, but

out of the tribe of Asher, and out of the tribe of Naphtali, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh in Bashan; which was the other half of the tribe beyond Jordan:

thirteen cities; as many as were given out of the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.

K&D, "Jos_21:6

The Gershonites received thirteen towns from Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and half Manasseh in Bashan.

PETT, "Verse 6-7The Allocation of the Other Cities.

Joshua 21:6

‘And the children of Gershon had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Issachar, and out of the tribe of Asher, and out of the tribe of aphtali, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen cities.’These Levites, who were ‘descended’ from Gershon, were given responsibility for three northern tribes, including Transjordan Manasseh.

Joshua 21:7

‘The children of Merari, according to their families, had out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities.’These were the ‘descendants’ of Merari, the third son of Levi. They were given responsibility for the Transjordan tribes of Reuben and Gad, and for Zebulun.

Thus were determined and allocated between the Levites the forty eight cities promised by YHWH ( umbers 35:6-7).

7 The descendants of Merari, according to their clans, received twelve towns from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Zebulun.

GILL, "The children of Merari by their families,.... The descendants of Merari, the third son of Levi:

had out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad; which were both on the other side Jordan:

and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities; in all forty eight, as the Lord commanded, Num_35:7.

K&D, "Jos_21:7-8

The Merarites received twelve towns from Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.

The number of towns thus assigned to the Levites will not appear too large, if we consider, (1) that judging from the number of towns in so small a land, the greater part of them cannot have been very large; (2) that the Levites were not the sole possessors of these towns, but simply received the number of dwelling-houses which they actually required, with meadow land for their cattle in the suburbs of the towns, whilst the rest of the space still belonged to the different tribes; and (3) that if the 23,000 males, the number of the Levites at the second census which was taken in the steppes of Moab, were distributed among the thirty-five towns, it would give 657 males, or 1300 male and female Levites for every town. On the other hand, offence has been taken at the statement, that thirteen towns were given up to the priests; and under the idea that Aaron could hardly have had descendants enough in Joshua's time from his two sons

who remained alive to fill even two towns, to say nothing of thirteen, the list has been set down as a document which was drawn up at a much later date (Maurer, etc.). But any one who takes this ground not only attributes to the distribution commission the enormous shortsightedness of setting apart towns for the priests merely to meet their existing wants, and without any regard to the subsequent increase which would take place in their numbers, but also forms too large an estimate of the size of the towns, and too small an estimate of the number of the priests. Moreover, it was never intended that the towns should be filled with priests' families; and the number of priests alive at that time is not mentioned anywhere. But if we bear in mind that Aaron died in the fortieth year of the journeys of the Israelites, at the age of 123 years (Num_33:38), and therefore was eighty-three years old at the time of the exodus from Egypt, his descendants might have entered upon the fourth generation seven years after his death. Now his two sons had twenty-four male descendants, who were the founders of the twenty-four classes instituted by David (1 Chron 24). And if we only reckon six males to each of the next generations, there would be 144 in the third generation, who would be between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five when the distribution of the land took place, and who might therefore have had 864 male children living at that time; so that the total number of males in the families of the priests might have amounted to more than 1000, that is to say, might have consisted of at least 200 families.

8 So the Israelites allotted to the Levites these towns and their pasturelands, as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

GILL, "And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs,.... Reaching two thousand cubits from the cities all around: these cities did not lie all together, and so could not be described by their coasts; but in the several tribes, and intermixed with their cities; which fulfilled Jacob's prophecy, that they should be divided and scattered in Israel, Gen_49:7; as well as it was so ordered for the benefit of the several tribes, that they might have the assistance of the priests and Levites, to instruct them in the knowledge of the laws and commandments of God, and all divine things:

as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses; Num_35:2.

PETT, "Verse 8Detailed Description of the Cities Given.

Joshua 21:8

‘And the children of Israel gave by lot to the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as YHWH commanded by the hand of Moses.’As mentioned above this ‘giving’ of the cities did not indicate that the Levites took full possession of them, although from this point in time they were levitical cities under the final jurisdiction of the Levites. The children of Aaron would not be numerous enough to take full possession of thirteen cities, indeed they were probably stretched to even provide a few inhabitants for each, although of course provision was being made for the future. The ‘suburbs’ were the lands directly surrounding the city, and did not include general lands and the villages round about (verse 12).

“As YHWH commanded by the hand of Moses” (see umbers 35:2-8).

9 From the tribes of Judah and Simeon they allotted the following towns by name

BAR ES 9-19, "The thirteen priestly cities (see the marginal references) were all in the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. Thus, as Calvin remarks, God so overruled it that the priestly families were placed upon the spot which He had determined before hand to choose as the site of His temple.

GILL, "And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah,.... Here follows a particular account of the several cities which were given out of each tribe, and first out of this:

and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon; which is joined with that of Judah, because the cities of it lay within it, Jos_19:1,

these cities which are here mentioned by name; Jos_21:13.

HE RY 9-19, "We have here a particular account of the cities which were given to the children of Levi out of the several tribes, not only to be occupied and inhabited by them, as tenants to the several tribes in which they lay - no, their interest in them was not dependent and precarious, but to be owned and possessed by them as lords and proprietors, and as having the same title to them that the rest of the tribes had to their cities or lands, as appears by the law which preserved the house in the Levites' cities from being alienated any longer than till the year of jubilee, Lev_25:32, Lev_25:33. Yet it is probable that the Levites having only the cities and suburbs, while the land about pertained to the tribes in which they lay, those of that tribe, for the convenience of occupying that land, might commonly rent houses of the Levites, as they could spare

them in their cities, and so live among them as their tenants. Several things may be observed in this account, besides what was observed in the law concerning it, Num. 35.

I. That the Levites were dispersed into all the tribes, and not suffered to live all together in any one part of the country. This would find them all with work, and employ them all for the good of others; for ministers, of all people, must neither be idle nor live to themselves or to one another only. Christ left his twelve disciples together in a body, but left orders that they should in due time disperse themselves, that they might preach the gospel to every creature. The mixing of the Levites thus with the other tribes would be an obligation upon them to walk circumspectly, and as became their sacred function, and to avoid every thing that might disgrace it. Had they lived all together, they would have been tempted to wink at one another's faults, and to excuse one another when they did amiss; but by this means they were made to see the eyes of all Israel upon them, and therefore saw it their concern to walk so as that their ministry might in nothing be blamed nor their high character suffer by their ill carriage.

II. That every tribe of Israel was adorned and enriched with its share of Levites' cities in proportion to its compass, even those that lay most remote. They were all God's people, and therefore they all had Levites among them. 1. To show kindness to, as God appointed them, Deu_12:19; Deu_14:29. They were God's receivers, to whom the people might give their grateful acknowledgments of God's goodness, as the occasion and disposition were. 2. To receive advice and instruction from; when they could not go up to the tabernacle, to consult those who attended there, they might go to a Levites' city, and be taught the good knowledge of the Lord. Thus God set up a candle in every room of his house, to give light to all his family; as those that attended the altar kept the charge of the Lord, to see that no divine appointment was neglected there, so those that were scattered in the country had their charge too, which was to see that no idolatrous superstitious usages were introduced at a distance and to watch for the souls of God's Israel. Thus did God graciously provide for the keeping up of religion among them, and that they might have the word nigh them; yet, blessed be God, we, under the gospel, have it yet nigher, not only Levites in every county, but Levites in every parish, whose office it is still to teach the people knowledge, and to go before them in the things of God.

JAMISO , "Jos_21:9-42. The cities of the priests.

they gave ... these cities which are here mentioned by name— It was overruled by the unerring providence of the Divine Lawgiver that the cities of the priests lay within the territories of Judah and Benjamin. This was a provision, the admirable wisdom and propriety of which were fully manifested on the schism that took place in the reign of Rehoboam.

K&D, "Names of the Levitical Towns.

(Note: There is a similar list in 1 Chron 6:54-81, though in some respects differently arranged, and with many variations in the names, and corruptions of different kinds in the text, which show that the author of the Chronicles has inserted an ancient document that was altogether independent of the book before us. Thus in the Chronicles there are only forty-two towns mentioned by name instead of forty-eight, although it is stated in 1Ch_6:45. that 13 + 10 + 13 + 12, i.e., forty-eight towns in all, were given up to the Levites. The names omitted are (1) Jutta in Judah; (2) Gibeon in Benjamin; (3 and 4) Ethekeh and Gibbethon in Dan; (5 and 6) and Jokneam and Nahalal in Zebulun (compare Jos_21:16, Jos_21:17, Jos_21:23, Jos_21:34, and Jos_21:35, with 1Ch_6:59-60, 1Ch_6:68, 1Ch_6:77. In some cases also

the author of the Chronicles gives different names, though some of them indeed are only different forms of the same name, e.g., Hilen for Holon, Alemeth for Almon, Ashtaroth for Beeshterah, Mashal for Misheal, Hammon for Hammoth-dor, Kirjathaim for Kartan (compare 1Ch_6:58, 1Ch_6:60, 1Ch_6:71, 1Ch_6:74, 1Ch_6:76, with Jos_21:15, Jos_21:18, Jos_21:27, Jos_21:30, Jos_21:32); or in some cases possibly different names of the same town, e.g., Jokmeam for Kibzaim, and Ramoth for Jarmuth, and Anem for En-gannim (1Ch_6:68, 83, and Jos_21:22, Jos_21:29); whilst some evidently give the true reading, viz., Ashan for Ain, and Bileam for Gath-rimmon (1Ch_6:59, 1Ch_6:70; Jos_21:16, Jos_21:26). The majority, however, are faulty readings, viz., Aner for Tanach, Kedesh for Kishon, Hukok for Helkath, Rimmon and Tabor (compare 1Ch_6:70, 1Ch_6:72, 1Ch_6:75, 1Ch_6:77, with Jos_21:25, Jos_21:28, Jos_21:31, Jos_21:34-35).)

Jos_21:9-19

The priests' towns: (a) in Judah and Simeon (Jos_21:9-16); (b) in Benjamin (Jos_21:17-19).

Jos_21:9-12

In the tribe of Judah the priests received Kirjath-arba, or Hebron, with the necessary pasturage round about the town (see Num_35:2), whilst the field of the town with the villages belonging to it remained in the hands of Caleb and his family as their possession (Jos_14:12.).

COFFMA , "Verse 9THE CITIES OF THE PRIESTS

"And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are here mentioned by name: and they were for the children of Aaron, of the family of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot. And they gave them Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron), in the hill-country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession.

"And unto the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with its suburbs, and Jattir with its suburbs, and Eshtemoa with its suburbs, and Holon with its suburbs, and Debir with its suburbs, and Ain with its suburbs, and Juttah with its suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with its suburbs; nine cities out of these two tribes. And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its suburbs, Geba with its suburbs, Anothoth with its suburbs, and Aimon with its suburbs; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs."

There are four major divisions of the Levites. ow Levi had only three sons Kohath, Gershon, and Merari; but one of Kohath's descendants was Aaron who became a sub-tribe of his own, all of the priests being restricted to his descendants. All of the other descendants of Kohath were the Levites, thus giving us: (1) the sons of Kohath (through Aaron) the priests ( ote that the priests also, as descendants from Levi, were Levites, sometimes called Levitical priests); (2) the sons of Kohath (the

Levites); (3) the sons of Gershon (Levites); and (4) the sons of Merari (Levites).

There is another list of these Levitical cities in 1 Chronicles 6:54-81, with certain variations in it due to the double names borne by some cities, and to changes which, from time to time, might have been made. It will be observed here that Hebron had first been assigned to Caleb; but here it was given to the priests. In all probability, this was done with the full and happy consent of Caleb who nevertheless received suburban locations which Caleb himself may be presumed to have chosen. Several commentators have mentioned these two lists, referring to the variations as "slight,"[11] or "only minor."[12] Our own view is that the variations are of very little, if any, significance. Plummer pointed out the type of variations found. For example "Ibleam" is found in one place and "Bileam" in another, these being obviously the same word.[13]

We have already commented on the more important cities in this list, and regarding some of the others, about all that is known may be gleaned from this paragraph.

BE SO , "Verse 9-10Joshua 21:9-10. Judah and Simeon — These are mentioned together, because the cities of Simeon lay within Judah’s portion. Families — That is, of the family, the plural number being put for the singular which is not unusual.

ELLICOTT, "I HERITA CE OF THE PRIESTS (Joshua 21:9-19).

(9) Out of the tribe of . . . Judah . . . and Simeon; and (17) out of the tribe of Benjamin.—It is worthy of notice that, with the exception of a single city in the tribe of Simeon (viz., Ain, Joshua 21:16), all the priestly cities are so arranged as to fall ultimately within the kingdom of Judah, of which the capital was Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put His name there. The Levites also left their cities and their suburbs in the reign of Jeroboam (2 Chronicles 11:14), and came over to Judah. But the fact that all the priests, with the trifling exception noted above, were already settled in that kingdom, must have been a great attraction.

When these facts are observed, it is hardly possible not to be struck with the undesigned agreement between the Book of Joshua and the later history, as well as with the Divine foresight which arranged the distribution of the people thus.

(13) Hebron (El Khalil).

(14) Jattir (Attir).

Eshtemoa (Es Semû’a).

(15) Debir.—Probably identical with the town of this name in Joshua 15:49 (Edh. Dhâherîyeh), south-west of Hebron.

(16) Juttah (Yuttah).

Beth-shemesh (Ain Shemes).

(17) Gibeon (El Jib).

Geba (Jeb’a).

(18) Anathoth (‘Anâta).

Almon (’Almit).

PETT, "Verse 9-10‘And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are here mentioned by name (literally ‘which one calls by name’), and these were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, for theirs was the first lot.’The first lot was for the family of Aaron as priests of the land. The names of the cities allocated to them in Judah and Simeon are to be listed. Their descent is clearly outlined.

10 (these towns were assigned to the descendants of Aaron who were from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them):

GILL, "Which the children of Aaron, being of the families of the Kohathites,.... Who descending from Kohath, in the line of Aaron, were priests:

who were of the children of Levi, had; they were Levites, as descending from Levi, but were priests also, as being of the stock of Aaron, and the cities hereafter mentioned in the said tribe fell to their portion:

for theirs was the first lot; for being of the line of Aaron, and priests, they had the honour and privilege to have the first lot drawn for them, and out of the tribe for which the first lot was also drawn, the tribe of Judah; here they had their cities allotted them, for a reason before given.

COKE, "Verses 10-18Ver. 10-18. Which the Kohathites had; for their's was the first lot— Thus the Levite priests had for their part, as well in Simeon as in Judah, Hebron, excepting the country about it, which was already given to Caleb; ch. Joshua 14:14. Libnah, Jattir, Eshtemoa, Holon, Debir, Ain, Juttah, and Beth-shemesh; and in the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon, Geba, Anathoth, and Almon, all which cities have been mentioned before, particularly in ch. 15: Of these, as well as of the other cities assigned to the Levites, we have a catalogue in 1 Chronicles 6 but that is imperfect; and, it should be observed, that the cities there are sometimes named otherwise than here. This may proceed from two causes: first, that, it being impracticable, to take some of these cities from the Canaanites, there was a necessity of substituting others in their stead, which are named in the list inserted 1 Chronicles 6. Secondly, that some of these cities had probably two names, or else had changed their names in the course of time. We also meet with differences in the names of the cities which fell to the Levites, on reading them in the version of the LXX. The copies printed from the Alexandrian manuscript render the Hebrew with the utmost exactness; but several names are there omitted. On the contrary, the copies which follow the Vatican manuscript omit very few names of cities, but those are mostly disfigured, or wholly different.

11 They gave them Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), with its surrounding pastureland, in the hill country of Judah. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.)

GILL, "And they gave them the city of Arba, the father of Anak,.... Which from him was called Kirjatharba, Jos_14:15; and Anak, according to Kimchi, is not the name of a man, but a general name, comprehending the Anakims, a race of giants, among whom Arba was the chief and principal man, a prince and ruler over them, as Ben Melech:

which city is Hebron in the hill country of Judah; as in Jos_14:15; see Luk_1:39,

with the suburbs thereof round about it; as far as two thousand cubits, which were to put their cattle in, and provision for them.

WHEDO , "11. Hebron — See on Joshua 10:3, and Joshua 14:12. We here meet the difficulty of a double proprietorship. We have seen in Joshua 14:13, that Joshua gave Hebron to Caleb as a reward for his fidelity, but now we find that the same city is bestowed upon the priests. Our solution of this difficulty is, that the Levites did not have exclusive ownership of these cities. From umbers 3:39, we learn that the census of the Levites was about twenty-two thousand males of a month old and upward.

This would give less than five hundred males, adult and children, to each of the forty-eight cities. As Hebron and Shechem and several others were large and important, the inference is, that the Levites had ample inheritance in these cities sufficient to give a sacred character to them. We have an intimation of this in Joshua 21:12. For the Hebrews who tilled the fields of Caleb’s sons must have resided in Hebron for protection. Again, in the law requiring the alienated house and pasture land of the Levite to revert to him in the year of jubilee, there is implied that others than Levites lived with them. Leviticus 25:32-34.

PETT, "Verse 11‘And they gave them the city of Arba, the father of Anak, the same is Hebron in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it, but the fields of the city, and its villages gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh, for his possession.’The giving of Hebron to the Levites as a city of refuge and dwelling place by Aaronids would have to be approved by Caleb, but he was no doubt delighted to do so. It gave his city great prestige and as a godly man he would not be unwilling to provide pasture land for these Levites who, as the children of Aaron, would be few in number. It probably actually cost him very little. While authority theoretically passed to the Levites there is little doubt that he himself retained the main authority, for Hebron oversaw a wide area and it is stressed that he retained authority over that area. For all practical purposes, apart from in religious matters, the Levites in Hebron were probably mainly subject to his control.

ote the emphasis on the antiquity of the city. It accentuated its importance. Kiriath-arba means ‘the city of four’ or ‘city of Arba’ - see Genesis 23:2. LXX described it as ‘the mother-city of the Anakim’. But there is no reason to reject Arba as a name or nickname and it is certainly related to the Anakim in some way, so when we are told here that it was named after a famous ancestor of the Anakim, named Arba, possibly because he had the strength or usefulness of four men (compare Joshua 15:13 which suggests that LXX translated ‘father’ as ‘mother’ because it related the latter more to a city) it makes good sense.

12 But the fields and villages around the city they

had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.

CLARKE, "The fields of the city - gave they to Caleb - This was an exclusive privilege to him and his family, with which the grant to the Levites did not interfere. See the notes on Jos_14:14.

GILL, "But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof,.... Which lay beyond the two thousand cubits:

gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh, for his possession; as Moses had promised, and Joshua had confirmed to him; and now the children of Israel gave them to him, and put him in the possession of, Jos_14:6; and the same is to be observed of all the other cities given to the Levites, that they and their suburbs, extending to such a distance only, were given to them; but the fields and villages, which belonged to them, continued the inheritance of the tribes in which they were.

BE SO , "Joshua 21:12. The fields and villages — That is, all beyond the two thousand cubits expressed umbers 35:5. This is here mentioned, not as his peculiar case, but as one eminent instance, to show that it was so in all the rest of the cities here named; that the fields and villages thereof still belonged to the several tribes from whom the cities and their suburbs were taken. It would make the rest of the Israelites more cheerfully resign part of their possessions to the Levites, considering that even Caleb did so, though his possession had been long before promised, and now actually given to him by God’s special command, as a mark of honour and compensation for his long and faithful service.

TRAPP, "Joshua 21:12 But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession.

Ver. 12. Gave they to Caleb.] Who was glad, no doubt, of the Levites’ so near neighbourhood and good company, to instruct him and his in the law of the Lord, and to exhort them to obedience, which the best are too backward to, and may need monitors and remembrancers. [2 Peter 1:12]

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:12

The fields. The original is in the singular. We are not necessarily, therefore, to suppose that the land was mapped out into divisions analogous to our fields. Our word "land" would more accurately represent the meaning of the original, which refers to the arable and pasture land in the neighbourhood of the city, with the agricultural villages or homesteads dotted about it. Keil contends that the Levites

only received as many houses within the city as they needed, and that the rest belonged to Caleb. Bahr, moreover ('Symbolik,' 2:49), supposed that the Levites dwelt with the other inhabitants of the city, and that the pasture land within the distance of 2,000 paces from the city was reserved for them, the rest of the land belonging to the inhabitants of the tribe (see note on Gezer, Joshua 10:33). This seems the most probable explanation. The land in general was owned by the descendants of Caleb. But the Levites had certain pastures reserved for them, whither they drove their cattle (see note on suburbs, Joshua 14:4). The special information about Hebron here again is worthy of notice. It is copied by the author of 1 Chronicles in 1 Chronicles 6:1-81.

13 So to the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Libnah,

GILL, "Thus they gave to the children of Aaron the priest,.... The families of the Kohathites, that part of them which descended from him, and were priests:

Hebron with her suburbs, to be a city of refuge for the slayer; that had slain a person unawares, and without design; see on Jos_20:3,

and Libnah with her suburbs; a royal city, of which see Jos_10:29.

K&D, "Jos_21:13-16

Jos_21:13 contains a repetition of Jos_21:11, occasioned by the parenthetical remark in Jos_21:12. They also received Libnah in the lowland (see Jos_15:42; Jos_10:29); Jattir (Jos_15:48), Eshtemoah (Jos_15:50), Holon (Jos_15:51), and Debir (Jos_15:15, Jos_15:49; Jos_10:38) on the mountains of Judah; Ain, for which we should read Ashan(1Ch_6:44; cf. Jos_15:42), in the tribe of Simeon (Jos_19:7); Juttah on the mountains (Jos_15:55); and Beth-shemesh in the lowland (Jos_15:10).

PETT, "Verses 13-16‘And to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with her suburbs, and Jattir with her suburbs, and Eshtemoa with her suburbs, and Holon with her suburbs, and Debir with her suburbs, and Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs. ine cities out of those two tribes.’The repetition of Joshua 21:13 compared with Joshua 21:11 suggests that here the writer is copying an official list and therefore includes Hebron again as part of that list. The repetition was also necessary to bring out that Hebron was a city of refuge.

For Libnah see Joshua 10:29, for jos Jattir Joshua 15:48, for Eshtemoa Joshua 15:50, for Holon Joshua 15:51, for Debir Joshua 10:38; Joshua 15:15, for Ain Joshua 19:7, for Juttah Joshua 15:55, for Beth-shemesh Joshua 15:10. ote how the two tribes of Judah and Simeon are spoken of almost as one. There is no other example in the chapter of two tribes being linked in this way. Only Ain was from Simeon directly.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:13

Hebron with her suburbs to be a city of refuge for the slayer. Rather, the city of refuge for the slayer, Hebron and her cattle drives (see note above on Joshua 21:2). The translation in our version obscures the meaning, which is clearly that the cities of refuge were first fixed on, and then assigned to the Levites. Most of the cities in the following list have been noticed already.

14 Jattir, Eshtemoa,

GILL, "And Jattir with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_15:48,

and Eshtemoa with her suburbs; See Gill on Jos_15:50.

WHEDO , "Verses 14-1714-17. Jattir — Joshua 15:48.

Eshtemoah — Joshua 15:50.

Debir — Joshua 10:38.

Juttah — Joshua 15:55.

Beth-shemesh — Joshua 15:10.

Gibeon — Joshua 9:3.

Geba — Joshua 18:24.

15 Holon, Debir,

GILL, "And Holon with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_15:51,

and Debir with her suburbs; See Gill on Jos_15:49.

16 Ain, Juttah and Beth Shemesh, together with their pasturelands—nine towns from these two tribes.

GILL, "And Ain with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_15:32,

and Juttah with her suburbs; See Gill on Jos_15:55,

and Bethshemesh with her suburbs; which is not mentioned among the cities of Judah, Jos_15:21; only as in the borders of it, Jos_21:10; and perhaps is the same Bethshemesh to which the ark was directed by the Philistines from Ashdod, 1Sa_6:9; in it formerly was a temple dedicated to the sun, from whence it had its name:

nine cities out of those two tribes; and they seem all but one, which is Ain, to be of the tribe of Judah, and that originally belonged to it; and as that tribe had the largest number of cities in its lot, the more were given out of it to the Levites, according to a rule prescribed, Num_35:8.

BE SO , "Verse 16Joshua 21:16. And Ain — Ain and Gibeon, and some others here named, are not named 1 Chronicles 6:59. Either they were destroyed in some of those invasions wherewith their land was grievously wasted before that time, or they appear there under other names.

17 And from the tribe of Benjamin they gave them Gibeon, Geba,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_18:25; from which came the Gibeonites.

Geba with her suburbs. Of which See Gill on Jos_18:24.

K&D, "Jos_21:17-19

In the tribe of Benjamin they received Gibeon (see Jos_9:3), Geba (Jos_18:24), also Anathoth and Almon, which are missing in the list of the towns of Benjamin (see at Jos_18:24).

PETT, "Verses 17-19‘And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs, Anathoth with her suburbs, and Almon with her suburbs. Four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs ’With the four cities from Benjamin the priestly cities came to thirteen. otice the phrase ‘the children of Aaron, the priests.’ The writer is making clear the distinction between priest and Levite. For Gibeon and Geba see Joshua 18:24-25. Anathoth is not mentioned in the list of cities allocated to Benjamin but was the birthplace of the priests Abiathar (1 Kings 2:26) and probably Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:1; Jeremiah 32:6-8). It is now known as Anata, five kilometres (three miles) north east of Jerusalem. Almon is probably the Allemeth of 1 Chronicles 6:60 and is probably the ruined site ‘Almit, on the north east of Anathoth, and close by. Into these cities came priestly families to take up permanent residence and to take some form of authority over them, receiving the land that was close to the city boundaries.

18 Anathoth and Almon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

CLARKE, "Anathoth - Celebrated as the birthplace of Jeremiah, about three miles

northward of Jerusalem, according to St. Jerome.

GILL, "Anathoth with her suburbs,.... This is not mentioned among the cities of Benjamin, Jos_18:11; it was the native place of the Prophet Jeremiah; see Gill on Jer_1:1; it lay about two or three miles north of Jerusalem; three, says, Jerom (k). Rauwolff (l) speaks of it as a small village, when he travelled into those parts, and as lying on a height or eminence, and which was within twenty furlongs of Jerusalem, as Josephus writes (m):

and Almon with her suburbs; this also is not mentioned among the cities of Benjamin, Jos_18:11; it is called Alemeth, 1Ch_6:60. Jarchi and Kimchi say it is the same with Bahurim, 2Sa_3:16; where the Targum renders it by Almeth, and both words signify the same thing, "youth":

four cities; which were a large number for so small a tribe as little Benjamin to give.

WHEDO ,"18. Anathoth was the place to which King Solomon banished Abiathar, (1 Kings 2:26,) and the birthplace of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1:1. It is represented by the modern village Anata, four miles northeast of Jerusalem. It is now a small village, but contains remains of the walls and foundations of the ancient city.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:18

Anathoth. The birthplace of Jeremiah, where we find that Anathoth was still a priestly city (Joshua 1:1). o doubt it was for this reason that it was chosen (1 Kings 2:26) as the place of Abiathar's banishment. Here again we see to how close an examination the writers of the Old Testament may be submitted without in the least degree shaking their testimony. Observe, too, the geographical accuracy of Isaiah's mention of Geba and Anathoth in his description of an Assyrian invasion through the passes at Ai or Aiath and Michmash (Isaiah 10:29, Isaiah 10:30).

19 The total number of towns for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, came to thirteen, together with their pasturelands.

CLARKE, "Thirteen cities with their suburbs - At the time mentioned here certainly thirteen cities were too large a proportion for the priests, as they and their families amounted to a very small number: but this ample provision was made in reference to their great increase in after times, when they formed twenty-four courses, as in the days of David.

GILL, "All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests,.... Those of the Kohathites that came from him:

were thirteen cities with their suburbs; and just so many are mentioned by name in Jos_21:11.

HE RY, " That there were thirteen cities, and those some of the best, appointed for the priests, the sons of Aaron, Jos_21:19. Aaron left but two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, yet his family was now so much increased, and it was foreseen that it would in process of time grow so numerous, as to replenish all these cities, though a considerable number must of necessity be resident wherever the ark and the altar were. We read in both Testaments of such numbers of priests that we may suppose none of all the families of Israel that came out of Egypt increased afterwards so much as that of Aaron did; and the promise afterwards to the house of Aaron is, God shall increase you more and more, you and your children, Psa_115:12, Psa_115:14. He will raise up a seed to serve him.

COKE, "Verse 19Ver. 19. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen— But why thirteen cities to the priests, it may be asked, who were then so few in number? To which we may reply, it is the right, the lordship of these cities which is given them, and that not according to what they then were, but with a view to what they should one day be, and to supply them plentifully with subsistence, when, according to the divine promises, they should be multiplied in the extraordinary degree that they afterwards were. See Psalms 12:8. We are greatly deceived, if we think that the cities given to the Levites were given merely for their habitation, and to dwell in only by themselves: the right which they already had of selling the houses in them, evidently supposes the contrary; and it is easy to conceive, that many private people took a delight in residing there, in order to have more of their acquaintance. Besides, it is plain from the history, that some cities of the Levites were almost entirely filled with Israelites of other tribes. Geba, in Benjamin, for instance, was constantly peopled by Benjamites, as appears from what happened to the Levite who lodged there, and whose concubine was dishonoured in so scandalous a manner, Judeges 19. All the other tribes declared war against the single tribe of Benjamin, without ever mentioning a word of the priests and Levites, who, probably, had no concern in this wickedness, and who were so few in number in that city, that no attention was paid to them. We afterwards see Saul and his whole family residing in this same city of Geba. David, and all his court, dwelt at Hebron during the first years of his reign; so that the Levites had the right of choosing for themselves the houses which suited them, in the cities appropriated for their use; and the rest of the houses were let to private persons in the tribe, to whose portion such or such a city fell out; and if the Levites rather chose to reside elsewhere, they were the masters, and might suit

themselves; and we know, that after the building of the temple, most of the priests remained at Jerusalem, or in the places adjacent.

20 The rest of the Kohathite clans of the Levites were allotted towns from the tribe of Ephraim:

BAR ES 20-26, "Of the cities of the non-priestly Kohathites, for Kibzaim we find Jokmeam in 1Ch_6:68. This is perhaps another name for the same place, since both names may be derived from roots having a similar meaning; and for Gath-rimmon in 1Ch_6:70, Bileam is given, and probably correctly; Gath-rimmon having apparently been repeated inadvertently from the preceding verse. Bileam is but another form of Ibleam Jos_17:11.

GILL, "And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites,.... Who were not priests:

which remained of the children of Kohath; these are the children of Moses, as Jarchi says, and those that descended from Kohath in the lines of Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel:

even they had the cities of their lot out of the tribe of Ephraim; and were as follow.

K&D, "Jos_21:20-25

Towns of the Levites. - Jos_21:20-26. The other Kohathites received four towns from the tribe of Ephraim (Jos_21:21, Jos_21:22), four from Dan (Jos_21:23, Jos_21:24), and two from the half tribe of Manasseh on this side of the Jordan (Jos_21:25). From Ephraim they received Shechem (see Jos_17:7), Gezer (Jos_10:33), Kibzaim - for which we find Jockmeam in 1Ch_6:68, possibly a different name for the same place, which has not yet been discovered - and Beth-horon, whether Upper or Lower is not stated (see Jos_10:10). From Dan they received Elthekeh and Gibbethon (Jos_19:44), Ajalon and Gath-rimmon (Jos_19:42, Jos_19:45). From half Manasseh they received Taanach(Jos_17:11; Jos_12:21) and Gath-rimmon - eye to the previous verse, for Bileam (1Ch_6:70), i.e., Jibleam (Jos_17:11).

CALVI , "20.And the families of the children of Kohath, etc Why it was necessary

that the Levites should be dispersed among the different tribes, the reader may see in my Commentaries on the Books of Moses. This dispersion had, indeed, been imposed on their progenitor as a punishment for the cruelty and perfidy of which he had been guilty toward the children of Shechem, but the disgrace of it had been converted into the highest honor by their appointment as a kind of guardians in every district to retain the people in the pure worship of God. It is true, they were everywhere strangers; but still it was with the very high dignity of acting as stewards for God, and preventing their countrymen from revolting from piety. This is the reason for stating so carefully how many cities they obtained from each tribe; they were everywhere to keep watch, and preserve the purity of sacred rites unimpaired.

PETT, "Verse 20‘And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, even the remainder of the children of Kohath, they had the cities of their lot out of the tribe of Ephraim.’These were the descendants of Moses (see Judges 18:30) and of Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel (1 Chronicles 6:1-3). Their lot was among the Ephraimites. Thus the Kohathites had their dwellings among the two most powerful tribes.

COFFMA , "Verse 20THE CITIES OF THE KOHATHITES ( OT PRIESTS)

"And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, even the rest of the children of Kohath, they had their cities out of the lot of the tribe of Ephraim. And they gave them Shechem with its suburbs in the hill-country of Ephraim, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Gezer with its suburbs, and Kibzaim with its suburbs, and Beth-horon with its suburbs; four cities. and out of the tribe of Dan Elteke with its suburbs, Gibethon with its suburbs, Aijalon with its suburbs, Gath-rimmon with its suburbs; four cities. And out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Taanach with its suburbs, and Gath-rimmon with its suburbs; two cities. All the cities of the families of the rest of the children of Kohath were ten with their suburbs."

The mention of Gath-rimmon twice, in both Joshua 21:24-25, according to the scholars, is a copyist's error, the true reading being given in the list in Chronicles were we find "Bileam" (the Ibleam of Joshua 17:11) instead of the second Gath-rimmon here.[14]

ELLICOTT 20-30, "(20) The children of Kohath . . . had the cities . . . out of the tribe of Ephraim.—In this instance the most honoured among the families of the Levites (after the house of Aaron) is grouped with the tribe next in honour after Judah. The tribes of Dan and Manasseh (Joshua 21:23-25) also were highly honoured, as they received Kohathites to settle among them.

(21) Shechem . . . in mount Ephraim, to be a city of refuge.—The metropolis of Israel for the time being is made a city of refuge; and there is an obvious convenience in this. In the same way Solomon made Jerusalem a city of refuge for

Shimei, binding him not to leave the city under penalty of death (1 Kings 2:36-46).

Gezer (Tell Jezer).

(22) Kibzaim (Tell el-Kabûs).

Beth-horon (Beit-’Ur).

(23, 24) For these Danite cities, see Joshua 19:40-46.

(25) Tanach—i.e., Taanach—a city of Manasseh, in the territory of Isaachar.

(27) Unto the children of Gershon . . . out of the other half tribe of Manasseh . . . in Bashan, and (28) out of the tribe of Issachar, and (30) out of the tribe of Asher.—Each of the four divisions of the house of Levi is made a bond to cement three of the twelve tribes together. Sometimes the association is obvious. In this case the two. sides of Jordan are bound together by the Gershonites.

(28) Dabareh—i.e., Daberath (Debûrieh).

(29) Jarmuth—i.e., Remeth.

En-gannim (Jenin).

(30) Mishal.—See Joshua 19:46.

Abdon.—Also mentioned there.

21 In the hill country of Ephraim they were given Shechem (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Gezer,

GILL, "For they gave them Shechem, with her suburbs, in Mount Ephraim,.... Of which see Jos_20:7,

to be a city of refuge for the slayer; which being on a mountain, was the more

conspicuous, and the fitter for this purpose, as was Hebron in the hill country of Judea, Jos_21:11; this is the second; city of refuge mentioned:

and Gezer with her suburbs: a place from whence the Canaanites were not expelled; See Gill on Jos_16:10.

HE RY, " That some of the Levites' cities were afterwards famous upon other accounts. Hebron was the city in which David began his reign, and in Manhanaim, another Levites' city (Jos_21:38), he lay, and had his headquarters when he fled from Absalom. The first Israelite that ever wore the title of king (namely, Abimelech, the son of Gideon) reigned in Shechem, another Levites' city, Jos_21:21.

V. That the number of them in all was more than of most of the tribes, except Judah, though the tribe of Levi was one of the least of the tribes, to show how liberal God is, and his people should be, to his ministers; yet the disproportion will not appear so great as at first it seems, if we consider that the Levites had cities only with their suburbs to dwell in, but the rest of the tribes, besides their cities (and those perhaps were many more than are named in the account of their lot), had many unwalled towns and villages which they inhabited, besides country houses.

Upon the whole, it appears that effectual care was taken that the Levites should live both comfortably and usefully: and those, whether ministers or others, for whom Providence has done well, must look upon themselves as obliged thereby to do good, and, according as their capacity and opportunity are, to serve their generation.

WHEDO , "Verses 21-2421-24. Shechem — Joshua 17:7.

Gezer — Joshua 10:33.

Beth-horon — Joshua 10:10.

Aijalon — Joshua 10:12.

Tanach — Joshua 12:21.

PETT, "Verse 21-22‘And they gave them Shechem, with her suburbs, in the hill country of Ephraim, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Gezer with her suburbs, and Kibzaim with her suburbs, and Beth-horon with her suburbs. Four cities.’The Ephraimite cities were then listed. The first was Shechem, the city of refuge which was with Jerusalem the most powerful of the cities in the hill country. This was probably selected because it was seen as an ancient sanctuary connected with ‘the Lord of the covenant’ (Baalberith - at this time Baal was probably a title that could be used of Yahweh - see Judges 9). Gezer was a strong city and never fully occupied by Israel although later subjected to taskwork (Joshua 16:10). It was even later captured by Merenptah of Egypt and then by the Philistines, being given by Egypt to Solomon on his marriage. The listing of this city demonstrates a very early date when the capture and driving out of its inhabitants was still seen as a

probability. Kibzaim, perhaps tell el-Mazar, is otherwise unknown. Beth-horon was either Upper or Lower Beth-horon, meaning ‘house of Hauron’, a Canaanite god of the underworld. It controlled the valley of Aijalon and was thus an important city.

These four cities, with the immediate surrounding lands, were placed under Levite control. With Gezer it may never have become an actuality.

22 Kibzaim and Beth Horon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

CLARKE, "Beth-horon - There were two cities of this name, the upper and the nether; but which is intended here, cannot be ascertained.

GILL, "And Kibzaim with her suburbs,.... Which seems to, be the same with Jokneam, 1Ch_6:68; of it we read nowhere else:

and Bethhoron with her suburbs; upper Bethhoron, for there were two, an upper and a nether: see Jos_16:3,

four cities; as mentioned by name.

23 Also from the tribe of Dan they received Eltekeh, Gibbethon,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_19:44,

Gibbethon with her suburbs; see Gill on Jos_19:44.

PETT, "Verse 23-24‘And out of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with her suburbs, Gibbethon with her

suburbs, Aijalon with her suburbs, Gath-rimmon with her suburbs. Four cities.’For Eltekeh see Joshua 19:44, for Gibbethon see Joshua 19:44, for Aijalon see Joshua 19:42, for Gath-rimmon see Joshua 19:45.

24 Aijalon and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

GILL, "24 Aijalon and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

25 From half the tribe of Manasseh they received Taanach and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands—two towns.

GILL, "And out of the half tribe of Manasseh, Taanach with her suburbs,.... Of which see Jos_17:10,

and Gathrimmon with her suburbs, there was a city of this name in Dan, as in Jos_21:24; nor was it unusual for cities to be called by the same name in different tribes:

two cities; these are called Aner and Bilean in 1Ch_6:70; in process of time cities changed their names; two cities were a proper proportion for this half tribe; two more were given out of the other half tribe on the other side Jordan, as appears by what follows.

PETT, "Verse 25‘And out of the half tribe of Manasseh, Taanach with her suburbs, and Gath-rimmon with her suburbs. Two cities.’This was the half tribe of Manasseh west of Jordan. For Taanach see Joshua 12:21; Joshua 17:11. Gath-rimmon means ‘the winepress of Rimmon’. Rimmon was a well known god and it is not unlikely that winepresses in Canaan and Transjordan should have been named after him. 1 Chronicles 7:70 names these cities as Aner and Bileam (= Ibleam - Joshua 17:11) which may well be alternative later names.

(Some consider that Gath-rimmon has accidentally been picked up by a copyist

from Joshua 21:24 instead of Ibleam. But without further evidence this is purely hypothetical).

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:25

Tanach. The same as the Taanach before mentioned, Joshua 12:21. In 1 Chronicles 6:70 (56 Hebrews text) we have Eth-aner, an obvious blunder, as the Hebrew shows, Resh having been read for Hheth, and Aleph having been inserted to form the Eth of the accusative ease. This reading existed, however, as far back as the LXX. version. Gath-rimmon. There is a blunder also here, where Gath-rimmon has crept in by the mistake of a copyist from the last verse. The true reading is preserved in 1 Chronicles 6:70, where we find Ibleam (see Joshua 17:11), or as it is there written Bileam; no doubt by mistake; the Hebrew letters (omitting the Jod, which has dropped out), being those that compose the familiar name of Balaam the prophet. The LXX. reads Jebath here.

26 All these ten towns and their pasturelands were given to the rest of the Kohathite clans.

GILL, "All the cities were ten, with their suburbs,.... Four out of Ephraim, four out of Dan, and two out of the half tribe of Manasseh: which were

for the families of the children of Kohath that remained: who were of the other branch of the Kohathites, and who did not descend from Aaron, and were only Levites, and not priests; See Gill on Jos_21:20.

K&D, "Jos_21:26

Thus they received ten towns in all.

PETT, "Verse 26‘All the cities of the remainder of the children of Kohath were ten, with their suburbs.’Why should the family of Aaron receive more cities than the remainder of the family of Kohath? Perhaps the answer is that the leaders were desirous of spreading the influence of the relatively few priests as widely as possible.

27 The Levite clans of the Gershonites were given:

from the half-tribe of Manasseh,

Golan in Bashan (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Be Eshterah, together with their pasturelands—two towns;

BAR ES, "Compare Jos_19:18, etc. Of the cities of the Gershonites, for Beesh-terah read (Beeshterah.) The name is a contraction of Beth-Ashterah (“house of Ashterah”) and the city is undoubtedly the Ashtaroth or Astaroth of Og Jos_12:4; Deu_1:4; 1Ch_6:71.

CLARKE, "Golan in Bashan - On this and the other cities of refuge mentioned here, see the note on Jos_20:7.

GILL, "And unto the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites,.... The descendants of the second son of Levi:

out of the other half tribe of Manasseh; that which was settled beyond Jordan:

they gave Golan in Bashan, with her suburbs, to be a city of refuge for the slayer; see Jos_20:8; this is the third city of refuge mentioned:

and Beeshterah with her suburbs; called Ashtaroth, 1Ch_6:71; which had been the royal city of Og, king of Bashan, where he had his palace, Deu_1:4. Here seems to have been formerly a temple dedicated to the goddess Astarte; for Beeshterah is a compound of "Beth" and "Ashterah", or Astarte; that is, the house or temple of Astarte, but now become a city of the Levites:

K&D, "Jos_21:27-33

The Gershonites received two towns from eastern Manasseh: Golan (Jos_20:8; Deu_4:43), and Beeshterah. Beeshterah (contracted from Beth-eshterah, the house of Astarte), called Ashtaroth in 1Ch_6:56, may possibly have been the capital of king Og (Ashtaroth-karnaim, Gen_14:5), if not one of the two villages named Astaroth, which

are mentioned by Eusebius in the Onom. (s. v. Astharoth-karnaim), and are described by Jerome as duo castella in Batanaea, novem inter se millibus separata inter Adaram et Abilam civitates, though Adara and Abila are too indefinite to determine the situation with any exactness. At any rate, the present Busra on the east of the Hauran cannot be

thought of for a moment; for this was called Βόσσορα or Βοσορρά, i.e., ְצָרה ָ, in ancient

times, as it is at the present day (see 1 Macc. 5:26, and Joseph. Ant. xii. 8, 3), and was corrupted into Bostra by the Greeks and Romans. Nor can it be the present Kul'at Bustra on the north of Banyas upon a shoulder of the Hermon, where there are the ruins of a magnificent building, probably a temple of ancient date (Burckhardt, Syr. pp. 93, 94; Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 414-15), as Knobel supposes, since the territory of the Israelites did not reach so far north, the land conquered by Joshua merely extending to Baal-gad, i.e., Banyas, at the foot of the Hermon (see Jos_11:17), and the land to the east of the Jordan, or Bashan, only to the Hermon itself, or more correctly, merely to the districts of Geshuri and Maacah at the south-eastern border of the Hermon (see at Deu_3:8, Deu_3:14).

PETT, "Verse 27‘And to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, out of the half tribe of Manasseh they gave Golan in Bashan, with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Be-eshterah with her suburbs. Two cities.’For Golan see Joshua 20:8. Be-eshterah may well be short for Beth-ashterah - ‘the house of Ashterah’. 1 Chronicles 6:71 gives it as Ashteroth, which had been the royal city of Og, king of Bashan (Deuteronomy 1:4). Thus Manasseh gave four cities in all.

COFFMA , "Verse 27CITIES OF THE GERSHO ITES

"And unto the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, out of the half-tribe of Manasseh they gave Golan in Bashan with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Beeshterah with its suburbs; two cities. And out of the tribe of Isaachar, Kishion with its suburbs, Daberath with its suburbs, Jarmuth with its suburbs, En-gannim with its suburbs; four cities. And out of the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its suburbs, Abdon with its suburbs, Helkath with its suburbs, and Rehob with its suburbs; four cities. And out of the tribe of apthali, Kedesh in Galilee with it suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Hammoth-dot with its suburbs, and Kartan with its suburbs; three cities. All the cities of the Gershonites according to their families were thirteen cities with their suburbs."

"Beeshterah ..." (Joshua 21:27). This is another of those "variations" from the list in 1 Chronicles 6, which reads "Ashteroth"; "But Beeshterah is only an abbreviated form of Beth-Ashtaroth, meaning the place of Ashtaroth, or the Temple of Ashtaroth."[15] Thus, we have another instance of the same city with different names, the city here, of course, being one of Og's capitals.

In all of these assignments, it should be remembered that the Levites were neither

the sole possessors of those cities nor the rulers of them. "The regulation meant that adequate room for the Levites was to be provided, and that they had the right to the pasture lands around their cities."[16]

28 from the tribe of Issachar,

Kishion, Daberath,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Issachar, Kishon with her suburbs,.... From whence the river Kishon probably had its name, or the city from that; it is the same with Kishion, Jos_19:20; and called Kedesh, 1Ch_6:72.

Dabareh with her suburbs; the same with Daberath on the border of Zebulun; see Gill on Jos_19:12.

K&D, :Jos_21:28-29

From Issachar they received four towns: Kishon (Jos_19:20), Dabrath (Jos_19:12), Jarmuth = Remeth (see Jos_19:21), and En-gannim (Jos_19:21, or Anem, 1Ch_6:73).

WHEDO , "Verses 28-3928-39. Dabareh — Joshua 19:12.

En-gannim — Joshua 19:21.

Kedesh — Joshua 12:22.

Jokneam — Joshua 12:22.

Ramoth — Joshua 13:26.

Heshbon — Joshua 13:17; Joshua 13:26.

Jazer — Joshua 13:25.

PETT, "Verse 28-29‘And out of the tribe of Issachar, Kishion with her suburbs, Daberath with her suburbs, Jarmuth with her suburbs, En-gannim with her suburbs. Four cities.’For Kishion see Joshua 19:20, for Daberath (Dabareh) see Joshua 19:12, for Jarmuth and En-gannim see Joshua 19:21. Remeth is probably an abbreviation for

Yarmuth (compare 1 Chronicles 6:73).

29 Jarmuth and En Gannim, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

GILL, "Jarmuth with her suburbs,.... Called Ramoth, 1Ch_6:73; very probably the same with Remeth, Jos_19:21,

Engannim with her suburbs; called Anem, 1Ch_6:73,

four cities; so many are mentioned by name.

30 from the tribe of Asher,

Mishal, Abdon,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Asher, Mishal with her suburbs,.... The same with Misheal, Jos_19:26; called Mashal, 1Ch_6:74,

Abdon with her suburbs; not mentioned among the cities of Asher, unless the same with Hebron, Jos_19:28.

K&D, "Jos_21:30-31

From Asher they received four towns: Mishal or Masal (Jos_19:26; cf. 1Ch_6:74), Abdon (Jos_19:28), Helkath (Jos_19:25, called Hukok in 1Ch_6:75, probably a copyist's error), and Rehob (Jos_19:28).

PETT, "Verse 30-31‘And out of the tribe of Asher, Mishal with her suburbs, Abdon with her suburbs, Helkath with her suburbs, and Rehob with her suburbs. Four cities.’For Mishal see Joshua 19:26, for Abdon see Ebron - Joshua 19:28 (‘d’ and ‘r’ are

almost the same in Hebrew), for Helkath see Joshua 19:25, for Rehob see Joshua 19:28.’

31 Helkath and Rehob, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

GILL, "Helkath with her suburbs,.... See Gill on Jos_19:25; the same with Hukok in 1Ch_6:75,

and Rehob with her suburbs, four cities; See Gill on Jos_19:28.

32 from the tribe of aphtali,

Kedesh in Galilee (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Hammoth Dor and Kartan, together with their pasturelands—three towns.

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with her suburbs,.... Of which see Jos_20:7,

to be a city of refuge for the slayer; this is the fourth city of refuge mentioned:

and Hammothdor with her suburbs; the same with Hammon, 1Ch_6:76; and with Hammath, Jos_19:35; and is thought by some to be Tiberias, so called from the hot baths in or near it:

and Kartan with her suburbs; called Kirjathaim, 1Ch_6:76; but cannot be the Kirjathaim in Num_32:37; for that belonged to the tribe of Reuben, and was on the other side Jordan:

three cities; this being a lesser tribe than some others gave fewer cities, according to the rule in Num_35:8.

K&D, "Jos_21:32

From Naphtali they received three towns: Kedesh (Jos_19:37 and Jos_12:22), Hammoth-dor (called Hammath in Jos_19:35, and Hammon in 1Ch_6:76), and Kartan(contracted from Kartain for Kirjathaim, 1Ch_6:76; like Dothan in 2Ki_6:13, from Dothain in Gen_37:17). Kartan is not mentioned among the towns of Naphtali in Jos_19:33.; according to Knobel it may possibly be Katanah, a place with ruins to the north-east of Safed (Van de Velde, Mem. p. 147).

PETT, "Verse 32‘And out of the tribe of aphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Hammoth-dor with her suburbs, and Kartan with her suburbs. Three cities.’For Kedesh in Galilee see Joshua 20:7, for Hammoth-dor see Joshua 19:35, Hammath (‘hot springs’), which was just on the lower part of the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (Chinnereth) as it begins to narrow. They were probably the hot springs to the south of the later city of Tiberias. Kartan is not mentioned in the list of aphtali’s cities. In 1 Chronicles 6:76 it is Kiriathaim (meaning ‘two cities’). There was another Kiriathaim in Transjordan ( umbers 32:37; Jeremiah 48:1; Jeremiah 48:23; Ezekiel 25:9). With only three levitical cities aphtali is seen to be a smaller tribe.

ELLICOTT 32-43, "(32) For Kedesh see Joshua 19:37. The other two are not identified with any certainty.

(34) Unto the . . . . children of Merari . . . . out of the tribe of Zebulun, and (36) out of the tribe of Reuben, and (38) out of the tribe of Gad.—In the case of the Ger shonites, we saw two tribes on the west of Jordan united to one on the east. The Merarites are employed to connect two tribes on the east of Jordan with one upon the west, and the south-east of the Israelitish territory with the north. Thus “the whole body by joints and bands” was “knit together, that it might grow with a growth of God.” It is not a little interesting to observe that Joshua’s work of dividing the land of Canaan was so much directed to preserve the union of the several parts. The name of Levi (joined) thus received a spiritual emphasis. He was divided in Israel that he might be a bond of union, bringing the tribes of Israel together, and joining all of them to their God.

Jokneam (Tell Keimûn, near Carmel).

(35) ahalal (‘Ain Mahil).

(43) And the Lord gave unto Israel.—Although the conquest of Canaan was not completed in the time of Joshua, as it was afterwards under David, yet we see by this statement that the expectations of Israel were abundantly satisfied. They received all

that they hoped for.

33 The total number of towns of the Gershonite clans came to thirteen, together with their pasturelands.

GILL, "All the cities of the Gershonites, according to their families,.... Which were divided among them, according to the number of their families:

were thirteen cities with their suburbs; two out of the half tribe of Manasseh beyond Jordan, four out of Issachar, four out of Asher, and three out of Naphtali.

K&D, "Jos_21:33

They received thirteen towns in all.

PETT, "Verse 33‘All the cities of the Gershonites, according to their families, were thirteen cities with their suburbs.’So the Gershonites acted as Levites in the northern territories, Asher, aphtali, Issachar and Manasseh in Transjordan.

34 The Merarite clans (the rest of the Levites) were given:

from the tribe of Zebulun,

Jokneam, Kartah,

BAR ES, "Merarite cities. Some of these places are not found in the list of Zebulonite cities in Jos_19:10-16. The text is considered corrupt.

GILL, "And unto the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites,.... The descendants of the youngest son of Levi, who were all that remained of the Levites unprovided of cities:

out of the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with her suburbs; which lay near Carmel, and was a royal city; See Gill on Jos_12:22,

and Kartah with her suburbs; perhaps the same with Kattath, Jos_19:15.

K&D, "Jos_21:34-35

The Merarites received twelve towns. From the tribe of Zebulun they received four: Jokneam (Jos_19:11 : see at Jos_12:22), Kartah and Dimnah,

(Note: Many commentators identify Dimnah with Rimmono in 1Ch_6:77, but without sufficient reason; for the next of the Chronicles is no doubt corrupt in this passage, as it has only two names, Rimmono and Tabor, instead of four.)

which are not mentioned among the towns of Zebulun in Jos_19:11., and are unknown, and Nahalal (Jos_19:15).

COFFMA , "Verse 34THE CITIES OF THE MERARITES

"And unto the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its suburbs, Kartah with its suburbs, Dimnah with its suburbs, ahalal with its suburbs; four cities. And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its suburbs, and Jahaz with its suburbs, Kedemoth with its suburbs, and Mephaath with its suburbs; four cities. And out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Mahanaim with its suburbs, Heshbon with its suburbs, Jazer with its suburbs; four cities in all. All these were the cities of the children of Merari according to their families, even the rest of the families of the Levites, and their lot was twelve cities."

It is specifically pointed out that each of these four divisions of the cities of the Levites received either one or two of the cities of refuge: (1) The priests received Hebron; (2) the rest of the Kohathites received Shechem; (3) The Gershonites received Golan and Kedesh; (4) The Merarites received Bezer and Ramoth-Gilead.

CO STABLE, "The Merarites" towns21:34-42

There were12towns in which the Merarites resided: four in Zebulun ( Joshua 21:34-35), four in Reuben ( Joshua 21:36-37), and four in Gad ( Joshua 21:38-39).

In all, the Levites received48 cities with their surrounding pasturelands, including the six cities of refuge ( Joshua 21:41-42). God provided so that the Levites, whose responsibilities included the teaching and counseling of the other Israelites in the Law, were not far from anyone in Israel. They were to provide a positive spiritual influence on the whole nation. [ ote: See Jacob Milgrom, "The Levitical Town: An Exercise in Realistic Planning," Journal of Jewish Studies33:1-2 (Spring-Autumn1982):185-88; and B. S. J. Isserlin, "Israelite Architectural Planning and the Question of the Level of Secular Learning in Ancient Israel," Vetus Testamentum34:2 (April1984):169-78.]

"For Christians, the allotment of Levitical towns from each tribe illustrates the principle of returning to God a portion of what has been given to them. These gifts are then used to support others in need and to encourage the proclamation of the faith (cf. Acts 2:44-47; Romans 15:26-27; Philippians 4:10-18)." [ ote: Hess, p281.]

"Take special care of the poor clergy! This is the theme of the complex formed by umbers 35 and Joshua 21 , along with the relevant Deuteronomic laws." [ ote: Butler, p232.]

PETT, "Verse 34-35‘And to the families of the children of Merari, the remainder of the Levites, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with her suburbs, and Kartah with her suburbs, Dimnah with her suburbs, ahalal with her suburbs. Four cities.’For Jokneam see Joshua 19:11; Joshua 12:22. Kartah (possibly Kattath - Joshua 19:15) and ahalal (see Joshua 19:15) were probably on the north western edge of the plain of Jezreel. Dimnah was not mentioned in the list of cities but is possibly the same as Rimmon in 1 Chronicles 6:77 (compare Joshua 19:13).

35 Dimnah and ahalal, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

CLARKE, "Dimnah with her suburbs, etc. - It is well known to every Hebrew scholar that the two following verses are wholly omitted by the Masora; and are left out in some of the most correct and authentic Hebrew Bibles. Between critics there is no small controversy relative to the authenticity of these verses; and those who wish to see the arguments at large on both sides, must consult the Variae Lectiones of De Rossi on this place. Dr. Kennicott, who is a strenuous advocate for their authenticity argues thus

in their behalf: “Jos_21:41 and Jos_21:42 of this chapter tell us that the Levitical cities were forty-eight, and that they had been all as such described; so that they must have been all specified in this chapter: whereas now in all the Hebrew copies printed in full obedience to the Masora, which excludes two verses containing four of these cities, the number amounts only to forty-four.

“The cities are first mentioned, in the general, as being thirteen and ten, with thirteen and twelve, which are certainly forty-eight. And yet when they are particularly named, Jos_21:13-19 gives thirteen cities; Jos_21:20-26 gives ten cities; Jos_21:27-33 gives thirteen; Jos_21:34-36 gives four cities; and Jos_21:35-36 gives four more, all which can make but forty-four. And what still increases the wonder is, that Jos_21:40 infers from the verses immediately preceding, that the cities allowed to the Merarites were twelve, though they here make eight only, unless we admit the four other cities expressed in those two verses, which have been rejected by that blind guide the Masora. In defiance of this authority these two verses, thus absolutely necessary, were inserted in the most early editions of the Hebrew text, and are found in Walton’s Polyglot, as well as in our English Bible. But they have scarce ever been as yet printed completely, thus, And out of the tribe or Reuben, A City of Refuge for the Slayer, Bezer, in the Wilderness, with her suburbs, and Jahazah with her suburbs, Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities. See on this place my edition of the Hebrew Bible, where no less than one hundred and forty-nine copies are described, which happily preserve these verses, most clearly essential to the truth and consistency of this chapter. See also General Discourse, pp. 19, 26, 54.”

Though this reasoning of Dr. Kennicott appears very conclusive, yet there are so many and important variations among the MSS. that retain, and those that reject these verses, as to render the question of their authenticity very difficult to be determined. To Dr. Kennicott’s one hundred and forty-nine MSS. which have these two verses, may be added upwards of forty collated by De Rossi. Those who deny their authenticity say they have been inserted here from 1Ch_6:78, 1Ch_6:79, where they are found it is true, in general, but not exactly as they stand here, and in Dr. Kennicott’s Hebrew Bible.

GILL, "Dimnah with her suburbs,.... Nowhere mentioned, unless the same with Rimmon, 1Ch_6:77,

Nahalal with her suburbs; see Jos_19:15,

four cities; only two are mentioned, 1Ch_6:77; and they by different names; the one is Rimmon, before observed, and the other Tabor; perhaps the same with Chislothtabor, Jos_19:12.

36 from the tribe of Reuben,

Bezer, Jahaz,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with her suburbs,.... Which was a city of refuge, and the fifth of them in this account, though not observed as such here, but is in the Greek version; see Jos_20:8,

and Jahazah with her suburbs; called Jahaz; see Gill on Num_21:23.

K&D, "Jos_21:36-37

From Reuben they received four: Gezer (Jos_20:8 : see Deu_4:43), Jahza, Kedemoth, and Mephaath (Jos_13:18).

(Note: R. Jacob ben Chajim has omitted Jos_21:36 and Jos_21:37 from his Rabbinical Bible of the year 1525 as spurious, upon the authority of Kimchi and the larger Masora; but upon insufficient grounds, as these verses are to be found in many good MSS and old editions of an earlier date than 1525, as well as in all the ancient versions, and could not possibly have been wanting from the very first, since the Merarites received twelve towns, which included the four that belonged to Reuben. In those MSS in which they are wanting, the omission was, no doubt, a copyist's error, occasioned by the homoioteleuto'n (see de Rossi variae lectt. ad h. l., and J. H. Michaelis' Note to his Hebrew Bible).)

COKE, "Verse 36-37Ver. 36, 37. And out of the tribe of Reuben, &c.— These two verses are not in the oldest Hebrew copies. The Massoretes themselves say as much: they mention, however, that they are found in several very ancient copies; and the learned Hottinger, who has carefully entered into the subject, remarks, that they are found in the incomparable manuscript of the duke of Roan, found in Italy, A.C. 1495. See his Thesaur. Philolog. lib. 1: cap. 2 qu. 4 p. 181. Besides, the whole connection evidently shews that these two verses belong to the text; (see Bishop Walton's Considerator considered, ch. 6: sect. 14.) and we read them in the version of the LXX. They are also found in other manuscripts. See Houbigant's note, and Kennicott's Dissert. vol. 1, &c.

PETT, "Verse 36-37‘And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with her suburbs, and Jahaz with her suburbs, Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs. Four cities.’These verses are not in the Massoretic Text but are included in many Hebrew MSS and in versions. (See also 1 Chronicles 6:78-79. Thus they are Scripture whether included here or not). The four cities are required to make up the twelve in Joshua 21:40.

Bezer was a city of refuge, the fifth to be mentioned (see Joshua 20:8). All six were necessarily levitical cities. For Jahazah (Jahaz, Jahzah), Kedemoth and Mephaath see Joshua 13:18. Jahaz is well known as being where Israel defeated Sihon, the Amorite king ( umbers 21:23; Deuteronomy 2:32; Judges 11:20). It was later lost to Moab but Omri reconquered the land ‘as far as Jahaz’. According to the Moabite Stone it was again lost to Israel when Mesha, king of Moab, drove out the Israelites

and reclaimed it. Kedemoth gave its name to a nearby desert area (Deuteronomy 2:26). It is probably ez-Za‘feran, about sixteen kilometres north of the Arnon, near the Amorite’s eastern border. For Mephaath Tell el-Yawah has been suggested

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:36

And out of the tribe of Reuben. This verse and the succeeding have the Masoretic note appended that they are not found in the Masora or true tradition. Kimchi therefore rejects them. But they are found in the LXX. and the rest of the ancient versions, and they are necessary to make up the number of forty-eight cities. Dr. Kennicott, as well as Michaelis, Rosenmuller, and Maurer defended their genuineness. So does Knobel, who complains that Rabbi Jacob Ben Chajim, in his Rabbinical Bible of 1525, has very improperly omitted these towns on the authority of the Masora, and that many editors have foolishly imitated him They have no doubt been omitted by the mistake of a copyist, who passed on from the ַאְרָבע (four) of Joshua 21:35 to that of Joshua 21:37, omitting all that lay between. The LXX. adds here "the city of refuge for the slayer," words which may have possibly formed part of the original text, as they do in every other instance. Jahazah. It is worthy of remark that this city, with Heshbon and Jazer and Mephaath, fell into the hands of the Moabites in later times, a sad indication of religious declension (see Isaiah 15:1-9; Isaiah 16:1-14.; Jeremiah 48:21, Jeremiah 48:34).

37 Kedemoth and Mephaath, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

GILL, "Kedemoth with her suburbs,.... Near to which was a wilderness of that name; see Deu_2:26,

and Mephaath with her suburbs; of which See Gill on Jos_13:18; where the two preceding cities are mentioned along with it:

four cities, Jos_21:35, are not in some ancient copies of the Hebrew Bible, as is noted by the Masorites; but are in some others, as Kimchi owns, and stand in the Targum, in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and in a manuscript referred to by Hottinger (e); and the same words are to be, found in 1Ch_6:78, and are absolutely necessary to be retained, since without them there would be but eight cities for the Merarites, whereas they are expressly said to be twelve, Jos_21:40.

38 from the tribe of Gad,

Ramoth in Gilead (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Mahanaim,

GILL, "And out of the tribe of Gad,.... Which also, as that of Reuben, lay on the other side Jordan:

Ramoth in Gilead with her suburbs; of which see Jos_20:8,

to be a city of refuge for the slayer; and is the sixth and last city of refuge in this account:

and Mahanaim with her suburbs; here it was the angels met Jacob, which gave rise to the name of the place, Gen_32:1; afterwards a city was built here, and was on the borders of the tribe of Gad, and belonged to it, Jos_13:26; mention is made of it in other places, 2Sa_2:8 1Ki_2:8.

K&D, "Jos_21:38-39

From Gad they received four towns: Ramoth in Gilead, and Mahanaim (see at Jos_13:26), Heshbon (Jos_13:17) and Jaezer (Jos_13:25 : see at Num_21:32).

PETT, "Verse 38-39‘And out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Mahanaim with her suburbs, Heshbon with her suburbs, Jazer with her suburbs. Four cities in all.’Ramoth in Gilead makes up the sixth of the cities of refuge (see Joshua 20:8). It later features regularly in the conflicts with Syria. It is possibly Tell Ramith. Mahanaim means ‘two camps’. It was on the border of Gad with Manasseh (see Joshua 13:30), probably close to the northern bank of the River Jabbok. (Gad extended some kilometres north of the Jabbok). It was where Jacob met the angels of God before meeting Esau (Genesis 32:2). See also 2 Samuel 2:8; 1 Kings 2:8. Heshbon was taken by Sihon of the Amorites from the Moabites and made his capital city ( umbers 21:26). It was in the mountains some miles north east of the Dead Sea. Its site has not been identified. A Tell Hesban contained buildings from the iron age but no trace of an earlier city. But there are late bronze age sites nearby one of which could be the original Heshbon.

Jazer was a group of towns as well as a city and was frequently mentioned (see Joshua 13:25; umbers 21:32; umbers 32:1; umbers 32:3; umbers 32:35). It fell on the border between the Amorites and the Ammonites. During David’s time it furnished ‘mighty men of valour’ (1 Chronicles 26:31) and was one of the towns on the route of the census taking (2 Samuel 24:5). In Isaiah 16:6-12 and Jeremiah 48:28-34 it was once more regained by Moab, and even later by Ammon (1 Maccabees 5:4). It may possibly be identified with Khirbet Gazzir on the Wadi Sza‘ib near es-Salt. These were the four levitical cities of Gad.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:38

To be a city of refuge (see above, Joshua 21:13). Mahanaim (see Joshua 13:26). Perhaps the unquestionable entente cordiale between David and the sacerdotal party may have determined him to fix on this as his refuge when fleeing from Absalom, in addition to its situation beyond Jordan, and near the fords (2 Samuel 17:22, 2 Samuel 17:24).

39 Heshbon and Jazer, together with their pasturelands—four towns in all.

GILL, "Heshbon with her suburbs,.... Which was formerly the royal city of Sihon king of the Amorites, and was first given to and rebuilt by the Reubenites, but was upon the border of the tribe of Gad; and appears from hence to have been one of their cities, Num_21:26,

Jazer with her suburbs; sometimes called Jaazer, another city in the same country, and near Heshbon; see Num_21:32,

four cities in all: which were Ramothgilead, Mahanaim, Heshbon, and Jazer.

40 The total number of towns allotted to the Merarite clans, who were the rest of the Levites, came to twelve.

GILL, "So all the cities for the children of Merari by their families,.... Which were distributed by lot to them, according to the number of their families, and were sufficient for them:

which were remaining of the families of the Levites; the last division of them, besides those of the Kohathites, Levites, and the Gershonites:

were by their lot twelve cities; four out of the tribe of Zebulun, four out of the tribe of Reuben, and four out of the tribe of Gad, whose names are before given,

K&D, "Jos_21:40-42

They received twelve towns in all. - In Jos_21:41 and Jos_21:42 the list of the Levitical towns is closed with a statement of their total number, and also with the repetition of the

remark that “these cities were every one with their suburbs round about them.” ום ִעיר ,ִעיר

city city, i.e., every city, with its pasture round about it.

PETT, "Verse 40‘All these were the cities for the children of Merari according to their families, who were those remaining of the families of the Levites. And their lot was twelve cities.’So forty eight cities were set apart as levitical cities, that is were put under the authority of the Levites who were given dwelling and pasturage rights. There were thirteen for the family of Aaron (who would in number be few at that time), ten for the remainder of the Kohathites, thirteen for the Gershonites and twelve for the Merarites.

41 The towns of the Levites in the territory held by the Israelites were forty-eight in all, together with their pasturelands.

CLARKE, "Forty and eight cities - At the last census of the Hebrew people, related Numbers 26, we find from Num_26:62 that the tribe of Levi amounted only to 23,000; and it is supposed that forty-eight cities were too great a proportion for this tribe, the other tribes having so very few. But,

1. All the cities of the other tribes are not enumerated.

2. They had the circumjacent country as well as the cities.

3. The Levites had no other cities than those enumerated.

4. They had no country annexed to their cities, the 2,000 cubits for their cattle, etc., excepted.

5. Cities in those ancient times were very small, as most villages went under this appellation.

6. The Levites had now the appointment that was suited to their consequent increase. The other tribes might enlarge their borders and make conquests, but this was not suitable to the mere servants of God; besides, had they made conquests, they would have become proprietors of the conquered land; and God determined that they should have no inheritance in Israel, He himself being their portion.

GILL, "All the cities of the Levites, within the possession of the children of Israel,.... As comprised in one sum total:

were forty and eight cities with their suburbs; which is just the number that Moses from the mouth of God ordered to be given unto them, before they entered into the land, and before they were in possession of one city in it, Num_35:7; which, as it is a proof of the omniscience, prescience, and predetermination of God; so of the sure and true prediction of Moses, who could not be otherwise certain than from the Lord of the Israelites being able to give so many cities to them, out of each of their tribes: and it is to be observed, that this tribe of Levi, though it had no share in the division of the land, yet had more cities by lot given to it than any other, excepting the tribe of Judah; though indeed, in the account of some of the tribes, all the cities in them are not mentioned; and besides, they had only the cities they had with their suburbs round about them, but not the lands belonging to them, nor the villages; however this shows that a large and liberal maintenance of the ministers of the Lord, that serve in his sanctuary should be allowed and made for them, as in the legal, so under the Gospel dispensation.

CALVI , "41.All the cities of the Levites, etc This passage more especially shows what I have already more than once adverted to, that the boundaries of the other tribes were not so confined as not to comprehend a far larger number of cities than is actually mentioned. It is perfectly well known that Levi was the least numerous of all the tribes. With what equity, then, could it have been allowed to expand itself over four times the space allowed to the tribe of Zebulun, which, though more populous, is mentioned as only possessing twelve cities. Only sixteen are enumerated as belonging to the tribe of Issachar, nineteen to the tribe of aphtali, and twenty-two to the tribe of Asher. It would surely have been an unequal division to give the greater number of cities for habitation to the smaller population. Hence we infer, that not only the villages which are here set down as accessories of the cities were fit for habitation, but that other cities also, of which no mention is made, were included. In short, the extent of the lot of Levi makes it perfectly obvious how large and ample the territories of the other tribes must have been.

COFFMA , "Verse 41THE SUMMARY

"All the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight cities with their suburbs. These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them; thus it was with all these cities."

The numerology of the Hebrews was an extensive study, and a very great importance was attributed to the numbers. This is evident in the fact that these forty-eight cities constituted, in the aggregate, exactly twelve for each one of the four divisions of the Levites. The situation here suggests the twelve tribes marching in four detachments, the ark of God and its guard in the center ( umbers 2).

The Jews considered four the number of the world, and three the number or the `sign' of God; and twelve the multiple of the two. This symbolism relates especially to the description of the ew Jerusalem in Revelation 21:12,14,16,19,21, and Revelation 22:2, where one reads of the City that "lieth four-square," which has "twelve foundations," "twelve gates," "twelve angels," "twelve names," "twelve apostles," "twelve thousand (furlongs)," "twelve kinds of fruit," and "twelve months" in the year when the tree of life bore its fruit! Also the "four and three" motif is prominent in each of the sequence visions of the "seals," the "the trumpets," and the "vials" of the wrath of God, as reported in those middle chapters of Revelation.

COKE, "Verse 41-42Ver. 41, 42. All the cities of the Levites—were forty and eight—with their suburbs—Here we are to observe, 1. That Moses could never have assigned to the Levites beforehand the forty-eight cities contained in the lift above-mentioned, without prejudicing the tribes, had he not been inspired by God in the determination of this number. Joshua, Caleb, and the other Israelites who had been with them to discover the country, could not have taken the dimensions of it, so as to be able to judge beforehand whether the Levites could have so many cities as are here given them. We must, therefore, once more acknowledge Moses to be immediately directed in this whole affair by the spirit of the Lord. 2. We are not to be surprised at this great number of cities assigned to the tribe of Levi, which, though least numerous of all, seems possessed of more cities than any of the rest. This is only so in appearance; for whereas the numeration of the Levitical cities is precise and exact, that of the cities of the other tribes is not so; the historian contenting himself with naming the principal ones, as we have before remarked. Besides, the Levites had only their cities, with a small circuit of ground about them, without either villages or fields adjacent; and even these cities were peopled by as many of the laity as could settle there, as was observed on ver. 19. Their portion then was not by any means excessive; but it was worthy the liberality of God, whose ministers they had the honour to be.

REFLECTIO S.—The Levites were dispersed, that all the tribes might share the benefit of their instructions, and behold the exemplariness of their conduct. They were near in every division, that their brethren might shew them kindness, as commanded, Deuteronomy 12:19 and receive that counsel and instruction which, as

daily more conversant in God's law, they were qualified to administer. Their portion of cities was great, and these too of the best; because God would have his peculiar servants honourably and comfortably lodged and cared for, that they might wait upon God without distraction, and be utterly inexcusable if they neglected their ministry, for which they were so liberally paid, and to which they were wholly dedicated.

BE SO , "Verse 41Joshua 21:41. Forty and eight cities — So God ordered by Moses, umbers 35:7; and it is a demonstration that Moses was divinely inspired to make such an appointment, before it could be known whether, without straitening the other tribes, they could part with so many cities to the Levites. For when Joshua and Caleb went up to search the land, they could have no opportunity to take any accurate dimensions of the country, whereby Moses might know there would be room enough to allow the Levites so large a portion as this; but he was directed to it by a divine foreknowledge. But why had this tribe, which was the least of all, more cities than any of them? First, it doth not appear that they had more; for though all the cities of the Levites be expressed, it is not so with the other tribes, but divers of their cities are omitted. Secondly, the Levites were confined to their cities and suburbs; the rest had large territories belonging to their cities, which also they were in a capacity of improving, which the Levites were not; so that one of their cities might be more considerable than divers of those of the Levites.

PETT, "Verse 41‘All the cities of the Levites amongst the possession of the children of Israel, were forty eight cities with their suburbs. These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them. Thus it was with all these cities.’So the Levites had rights of dwelling and authority in forty eight cities and pasturage rights over the land nearest to each city, its ‘suburbs’. And we are assured that each city had its suburb. With their tithes the Levites were fully provided for.

These cities would be huddles of small dwellings and some larger ones crammed together within their walls or boundaries without much planning. Each would have a main square by the city gate, in most cases probably the only open space within the city. How room was to be made for the Levites we are not told. The theory was that they should be satisfied with their dwellingplace, the right to feed their cattle and their tithes. In practise many moved out of the cities and established themselves prosperously as we discover later. Indeed those assigned to cities lost to Israel such as Gezer had to find somewhere to live. And the theory was certainly not put fully into practise for a long time because the Canaanites were allowed to continue in the land and live in their cities, contrary to God’s commandment.

PULPIT, "HOMILIES BY R. GLOVERJoshua 21:41

The established Church of Israel.

These words project before us essentially the Church establishment of ancient Israel. It is quite true that the Old Testament priesthood in its functions differed in very many most essential points from the clergy of any modern Church. Their function was ritual rather than instruction. Their office came, not by fitness, choice, or ordination, but by birth and training. Throughout its history, from its earliest institution, when it was named "The Host," down to the days of the Maccabees, the priestly was one of the most warlike of all the tribes. According to Dr. Stanley ('Jewish Church,' vol. 2; Lecture on Jewish Priesthood), the employment of the Levites in the temple service was that of the butcher rather than of the theologian. And though distributed in every tribe, there was no attempt to secure that distribution of the Levites in every city, which would have been essential if their work had partaken in any great degree of the educational character marking that of the Christian ministry. Still they were a religious order. Chiefly serving in the temple at Jerusalem, they had yet some instruction work to do in their provincial homes. To them belonged the duty of "preserving, transcribing, and interpreting the law." They were the magistrates also who applied it (Deuteronomy 17:9-12; Deuteronomy 31:9, Deuteronomy 31:12, Deuteronomy 31:26). Though only a portion of their time occupied in attendance on the temple, and thus left free to pursue other labours, yet their service was recognised by a national provision. Roughly one-twelfth of the population, Levi had as its share the tithes of the produce realised by the other eleven tribes. It had no land, excepting a little suburban pasture land, given it; but forty-eight cities situate in all the tribes were given them for their dwelling. And while the priesthood never had the glory belonging to the line of prophets, it yet rendered splendid service to the land. It was a bond of unity between the various tribes. It linked them to God, it gave persistence to the national history, was the most enduring part of the most enduring people that the earth has seen; gave some of the finest psalmists, e.g; Heman and Asaph; produced grand prophets, e.g; Samuel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and probably Isaiah, Joel, Micah, Habakkuk, and others; statesmen, like Ezra; patriots, like the Maccabees. While the Ten Tribes today are lost, in the frequency of the names Cohen and Levy you see the grand persistence of the tribe and the stamp of God's approval of at least much of its service. In all this ordering of the Levitical institutions, and the provision made for the support of the tribe, we have a conspicuous example of a Church Establishment. As such consider it—

I. As an illustration of RELIGIOUS ESS OF MA . How strange is the universality of religious provision in the world! Egypt had its caste of priests; large provision was made in Greek and Roman societies for religious service; India has its caste of Brahmins; China has its Buddhist priests and monks; Israel has here its sacred tribe. Whatever else such a provision may import, it certainly involves a wonderful testimony to the force of the religious principle in man. Man cannot be utterly secular. The mystery around him, conscience within him, all aspirations of the heart, make him grope after God. However vague the creed and limited the law, every nation from the beginning has been religious. Israel's Church establishment illustrates this fact.

II. This example suggests that I ALL THI GS A ATIO OUGHT TO ACT RELIGIOUSLY. The writer questions the expediency, on grounds hereafter to be noticed, of a Church establishment in England today. He, at the same time, would equally protest against the opposite extreme, which would deny to a State any right to recognise the truth of God, God's claims, or the spiritual nature of man in its legislature. It is desirable that at once our national policy and law should in all points harmonise with those highest teachings of morals which we find in the word of God. If all do not agree in their views on these points, then, as in all other cases, the majority should have the power of carrying out their opinions, while the minority should have perfect freedom individually to hold and to propagate theirs. Recognising God and His claims, the policy and taws of a land would be more elevated in their tone. Is the question one of war, our English parliament should ask, What would God have us do? and should do it. On such questions as Sunday trading, the demoralising traffic in strong drink, religious education, or laws of marriage, the State could not without grave harm omit religious considerations from its grounds of action; on the contrary, it ought to place them in the forefront, and in all such questions adopt as its course that which, in its judgment, most accords with the will of God, and most furthers the spiritual as well as temporal benefit of man. If it believes God's will to be revealed in the Bible, it should appeal to and boldly follow the teaching laid down there. o desire to keep sacred things from irreverent handling should be permitted to divorce legislation from religion. o undue regard for sensibilities of a minority should keep the majority from acting according to its highest views, so long as the freedom of the minority is unimpaired. Without religion government degenerates into a thing of police and sanitation; and is apt to become mean in its tone, reckless in its principles, and adverse to the nation's real good.

III. EVERY PATRIOT SHOULD SEEK FOR HIS COU TRY THE DIFFUSIO OF TRUE RELIGIO . In what way this is to be done is a grave question. But if we aim at the right end, probably not much harm results from endeavouring to reach it in various ways. In Moses' time God ruled that the best way was a Church establishment. Expedient then, it seems to the writer inexpedient (not unlawful) now. He mentions a few out of many grounds.

42 Each of these towns had pasturelands surrounding it; this was true for all these towns.

BAR ES, "After this verse, the Septuagint introduces a passage (in part a repetition from Jos_19:49-50), recording the grant of a special inheritance to Joshua, and also that

he buried at Timnath-serah the flint-knives with which he had circumcised (Jos_5:2note) the people after the passage of Jordan. The latter statement, which has the authority of the Septuagint only, is a Jewish legend of early date.

GILL, "These cities were everyone with their suburbs round about them,.... Which reached to the space of two thousand cubits on every side; and such a space was assigned to everyone of the above cities for their cattle, to keep them in and lay up provision for them:

thus were all their cities; six of them cities of refuge, and forty two for the priests and Levites to dwell in, and for the commodious use of their herds and flocks.

BE SO , "Verse 42Joshua 21:42. These cities were every one with their suburbs — amely, two thousand cubits on every side round each city, as was ordered, umbers 35:5; and it certainly was a large proportion for this tribe. But God intended that an ample provision should be made for his ministers, to put honour on those whom he foresaw many would despise; and that, being free from outward cares and distractions, they might more entirely and fervently devote themselves to the service of God.

WHEDO , "Verse 4242. To this verse the LXX add the following, partly taken from Joshua 19:49-50, and partly legendary: “And Joshua finished dividing the land in their borders, and the children of Israel gave a portion to Joshua according to the commandment of the Lord; they gave him the city which he asked for, Timnath-serah gave they him in Mount Ephraim, and Joshua fortified the city and dwelt in it. And Joshua took the stone knives with which he circumcised the children of Israel who were born during the journey in the wilderness, and he deposited them in Timnath-serah.”

43 So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there.

BAR ES 43-45, "There is no real inconsistency between the declarations of these verses and the fact that the Israelites had not as yet possessed themselves of all the cities

allotted to the various tribes Judg. 1:21-36 - nor did at any time, subdue the whole extent of country promised to them Num_34:1-12. God had fulfilled all His part of the covenant. It was no part of His purpose that the native population should be annihilated suddenly Deu_7:22; but they were delivered into the hand of Israel, and their complete dispossession could have been effected at any time by that divine aid which was never wanting when sought. At the time referred to in the text, the Canaanites were discouraged, broken in strength, holding fast in isolated spots only up and down the land in the very midst of the tribes of God’s people. The conquest of Canaan was already “ex parte Dei” a perfect work; just as in the New Testament the triumph of the individual Christian and of the Christian Church in their warfare is often spoken of as accomplished in view of the divine will that it should be so, and of divine grace that it may be so. It was therefore, only the inertness and pusillanimity of the Israelites which prevented the completion of the conquest when the allotment of Canaan was made by Joshua; as it was their subsequent backslidings which caused God to turn the tide of victory against them and even to cast them out of the land promised to their forefathers and actually won in the campaigns of Joshua. See the introduction to the Book of Joshua.

CLARKE, "And the Lord gave - all the land which he sware - All was now divided by lot unto them, and their enemies were so completely discomfited that there was not a single army of the Canaanites remaining to make head against them; and those which were left in the land served under tribute, and the tribute that they paid was the amplest proof of their complete subjugation. Add to this, they had as much of the land in actual possession as they could occupy; and, as they increased, God enabled them to drive out the rest of the ancient inhabitants; but in consequence of the infidelity of the Israelites, God permitted their enemies often to straiten them, and sometimes to prevail against them. It should also be remembered, that God never promised to give them the land, or to maintain them in it, but on condition of obedience; and so punctually did he fulfill this intention, that there is not a single instance on record in which they were either straitened or subjugated, while obedient and faithful to their God.

The cavil is as foolish as it is unprincipled which states, “The Israelites never did possess the whole of the land which was promised to them, and therefore that promise could not come by Divine revelation.” With as much reason might it be urged that Great Britain has not subdued the French West India Islands and Batavia, (Feb. 1812), because the ancient inhabitants still remain in them; but is not their serving under tribute an absolute proof that they are conquered, and under the British dominion? So was the whole land of Canaan conquered, and its inhabitants subdued, though the whole of the ground was not occupied by the Israelites till the days of David and Solomon. In the most correct and literal sense it might be said, There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel: all came to pass. Nor shall one word of his ever fail to any of his followers while the sun and moon endure.

GILL, "And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers,.... It was all given them by lot, whether subdued or not subdued, and the far greater part was actually put into their hands, and they had as much as they could for the present occupy and cultivate; and such as were in the hands of the Canaanites, were subject to pay tribute to them; and it was owing to their own

slothfulness and sluggishness that they did not possess more hereafter; though it was the will of God that their enemies should be driven out by little and little, until the Israelites were so increased as to occupy the whole, lest any part of the land should lie waste and become barren, and lest the wild beasts of the field should multiply upon them:

and they possessed it, and dwelt therein; each according to their lot in the several places assigned them, as many cities as they could at present people, and as much land as they could now manage.

HE RY 43-45, "We have here the conclusion of this whole matter, the foregoing history summed up, and, to make it appear the more bright, compared with the promise of which it was the full accomplishment. God's word and his works mutually illustrate each other. The performance makes the promise appear very true and the promise makes the performance appear very kind.

I. God had promised to give the seed of Abraham the land of Canaan for a possession, and now at last he performed this promise (Jos_21:43): They possessed it, and dwelt therein. Though they had often forfeited the benefit of that promise, and God had long delayed the performance of it, yet at last all difficulties were conquered, and Canaan was their own. And the promise of the heavenly Canaan is as sure to all God's spiritual Israel, for it is the promise of him that cannot lie.

II. God had promised to give them rest in that land, and now they had rest round about, rest from the fatigues of their travel through the wilderness (which tedious march, perhaps, was long in their bones), rest from their wars in Canaan, and the insults which their enemies there had at first offered them. They now dwelt, not only in habitations of their own, but those quiet and peaceable ones; though there were Canaanites that remained, yet none that had either strength or spirit to attack them, nor so much as give them an alarm. This rest continued till they by their own sin and folly put thorns into their own beds and their own eyes.

III. God had promised to give them victory and success in their wars, and this promise likewise was fulfilled: There stood not a man before them, Jos_21:44. They had the better in every battle, and which way soever they turned their forces they prospered. It is true there were Canaanites now remaining in many parts of the land, and such as afterwards made head against them, and became very formidable. But, 1. As to the present remains of the Canaanites, they were no contradiction to the promise, for God had said he would not drive them out all at once, but by little and little, Exo_23:30. They had now as much in their full possession as they had occasion for and as they had hands to manage, so that the Canaanites only kept possession of some of the less cultivated parts of the country against the beasts of the field, till Israel, in process of time, should become numerous enough to replenish them. 2. As to the after prevalency of the Canaanites, that was purely the effect of Israel's cowardice and slothfulness, and the punishment of their sinful inclination to the idolatries and other abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord would have cast out before them but that they harboured and indulged them. So that the foundation of God stands sure. Israel's experience of God's fidelity is here upon record, and is an acquittance under their hands to the honour of God, the vindication of his promise which had been so often distrusted, and the encouragement of all believers to the end of the world: There failed not any good thing,no, nor aught of any good thing (so full is it expressed), which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel, but in due time all came to pass, Jos_21:45. Such an acknowledgment as this, here subscribed by Joshua in the name of all Israel, we afterwards find made by Solomon, and all Israel did in effect say Amen to it, 1Ki_8:56.

The inviolable truth of God's promise, and the performance of it to the utmost, are what all the saints have been ready to bear their testimony to; and, if in any thing the performance has seemed to come short, they have been as ready to own that they themselves must bear all the blame.

K&D 43-45," Jos_21:43-45 form the conclusion to the account of the division of the land in Josh 13-21, which not only points back to Jos_11:23, but also to Jos_1:2-6, and connects the two halves of our book together. By the division of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, the promise which Joshua had received from God after the death of Moses was fulfilled (Jos_1:2.). The Lord had given Israel the whole land which He had sworn to the fathers (Gen_12:7; Gen_15:18, compared with Jos_1:3-4); and they had now taken possession of it to dwell therein.

JAMISO , "Jos_21:43-45. God gave them rest.

the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers— This is a general winding up of the history from the thirteenth chapter, which narrates the occupation of the land by the Israelites. All the promises made, whether to the people or to Joshua (Jos_1:5), had been, or were in the course of being fulfilled; and the recorded experience of the Israelites (Jos_21:45), is a ground of hope and confidence to the people of God in every age, that all other promises made to the Church will, in due time, be accomplished.

CALVI , "43.And the Lord gave unto Israel, etc Should any one raise a question as to this rest, the answer is easy. The nations of Canaan were so completely overcome with fear, that they thought they could not better consult their interest than by servility flattering the Israelites, and purchasing peace from them on any terms. (176) Plainly, therefore, the country was subdued and rendered peaceful for habitation, since no one gave any annoyance, or dared to entertain any hostile intentions, since there were no threats, no snares, no violence, no conspiracies.

A second point, however, raises some doubt, (177) namely, how the children of Israel can be said to have been settled in the possession of the land promised to them, and to have become masters of it, in such a sense that in regard to the enjoyment of it, not one syllable of the promises of God had failed. For we have already seen that many of the enemy were intermingled with them. The divine intention was, that not one of the enemy should be permitted to remain; on the other hand, the Israelites do not drive out many, but admit them as neighbors, as if the inheritance had been common to them; they even make pactions with them. How then can these two things be reconciled, that God, as he had promised, gave possession of the land to the people, and yet they were excluded from some portion by the power or obstinate resistance of the enemy?

In order to remove this appearance of contradiction, it is necessary to distinguish between the certain, clear, and steadfast faithfulness of God in keeping his promises, and between the effeminacy and sluggishness of the people, in consequence of which the benefit of the divine goodness in a manner slipped through their hands.

Whatever war the people undertook, in whatever direction they moved their standards, victory was prepared; nor was there any other delay or obstacle to their exterminating all their enemies than their own voluntary torpor. Wherefore, although they did not rout them all so as to make their possession clear, yet the truth of God came visibly forth, and was realized, inasmuch as they might have obtained what was remaining without any difficulty, had they been pleased to avail themselves of the victories offered to them. The whole comes to this, that it was owing entirely to their own cowardice that they did not enjoy the divine goodness in all its fullness and integrity. This will be still clearer from the following chapter.

COFFMA , "Verse 43"So Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And Jehovah gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them: and Jehovah delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass."

In these verses, our eyes are lifted above the sinful errors and mistakes of mankind to the Father Himself; and we behold no shortcomings or failures with Him. All of His deeds are perfect. His eternal purpose moves in perfect synchronization with both time and eternity. With God there are no failures and no defeats. Even in Paradise, it was not Satan who won, but GOD! These verses enable us to see the big picture. God has indeed accomplished exactly what He intended; He has moved the newly-created nation of Israel into the room of the shameful Canaanites whose cup of wickedness was running over, and this nation, in the process of time, would deliver to mankind the Redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

But think of all the sorrows and the suffering, and all the failures and shortcomings of Israel! Yes, there were plenty of these, but Israel herself was expendable from God's point of view; and, in the process of time they were expended, thrust out of the very land God had given them; but, as God intended, they still delivered the Messiah!

So what a refreshing thing is this little paragraph! God and His holy purposes are eternally successful. With God, "There is no variation nor shadow that is cast by turning!"

Of course, as is always the case with men, the Israelites refused to follow through on their opportunities. Instead of driving out the Canaanite debauchees, Israel soon united with them, allowed themselves to be trapped and seduced by their gods, intermarried with them, and in time became, actually themselves Canaanites (Hosea 12:7; also see my discussion of this in Vol. 2 of the minor prophets Series, pp. 198,199).

There is a type of critic who FI DS FAULT with God: "Well, he did not drive out all the enemies like He promised." All of God's promises are CO TI GE T upon

the obedience and cooperation of God's children, and when that is not found, there can be no complete fulfillment of Divine promises.

As Cook stated it:

"It was only the inertness and pusillanimity of Israel which prevented the completion of the conquest when the allotment of Canaan was made by Joshua, and it was their subsequent backsliding that caused God to turn the tide of victory against them and even to cast them out of the land."[17]These verses state that God had delivered all their enemies "into their hands," and of course, He had. othing remained for Israel to do, but to apply themselves to the task and do it! "This they not only failed to do, but they even violated the conditions under which the land had been given to them, and they soon fell under the dominion of those who had been their vassals."[18] John Calvin stated that, " othing but their own cowardice prevented them from enjoying the blessings of God in all their fullness."[19]

These verses conclude the second major division of Joshua (Joshua 13-21), which has been concerned chiefly with the division of the land of Canaan among the Israelites. These verses actually encompass all that has already happened in Joshua thus far: the covenant promise of Joshua 1:19 has been fulfilled; Israel has possessed the Land of Promise, settled it, and received the promised rest; their enemies have been reduced to helplessness. What an inopportune moment for Israel to quit!

We can think of no better conclusion for this major section of Joshua than the last verse of this chapter:

"There failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass! (Joshua 21:45)."

BE SO , "Verse 43Joshua 21:43. The Lord gave unto Israel all the land — He gave them a right to the whole country, and the actual possession of the greatest part of it. He likewise authorized them to subdue and possess the rest, as soon as it should be needful for them, which was when their numbers were increased; and to exercise absolute dominion over all the people remaining in it. All which was exactly conformable to his promise and oath; for the Israelites not being numerous enough to people the whole land at their first coming into it, God never intended to expel all the old inhabitants at once, but by degrees, as we read expressly, Exodus 23:29.

WHEDO , "Verses 43-45THE DIVI E PROMISES FULFILLED, Joshua 21:43-45.

As the wicked are prone to forget the divine threatenings, so the people of God are inclined to neglect the divine promises. Hence the necessity of calling special attention to them, that their fulfilment may exert a salutary influence upon us.

CO STABLE, "Verses 43-45E. The faithfulness of God21:43-45

These verses conclude the account of the division of the land proper (chs13-21; cf. Joshua 1:2-6; Joshua 11:23). They bind the two parts of the second half of the book together, and they form a theological conclusion to the entire book up to this point.

These statements may seem at first to mean that at this time the Israelites had obtained everything God had promised the patriarchs. Such was not the case.

" otwithstanding the fact that many a tract of country still remained in the hands of the Canaanites, the promise that the land of Canaan should be given to the house of Israel for a possession had been fulfilled; for God had not promised the immediate and total destruction of the Canaanites, but only their gradual extermination (Ex. xxiii29 , 30; Deut. vii22). And even though the Israelites never came into undisputed possession of the whole of the promised land, to the full extent of the boundaries laid down in um. xxxiv1-2 , never conquering Tyre and Sidon for example, the promises of God were no more broken on that account than they were through the circumstance, that after the death of Joshua and the elders his contemporaries, Israel was sometimes hard pressed by the Canaanites; since the complete fulfillment of this promise was inseparably connected with the fidelity of Israel to the Lord." [ ote: Keil and Delitzsch, p216.]

"The Canaanites, it is true, were yet in possession of some parts of the country, but they were so far subdued, that they gave them [the Israelites] no serious molestation, and they were enabled to sit down in their possessions in the enjoyment of comparative rest and quiet. They had as much of the land in actual possession as they could occupy; and as they increased God enabled them, according to his promise, Exodus 23:30, to carry forward the work of extermination, and obtain further room for their settlement. All the assurances given to Joshua , ch15 , of a successful tide of victories during his life, were accomplished, and as to the subsequent annoyance and occasional prevalence of their enemies, it was owing solely to the supineness and infidelity of Israel. So long as they were obedient, they were uniformly triumphant and prosperous." [ ote: Bush, p189. See also Campbell, " Joshua ," pp364-65.]

In Joshua 23:5 Joshua indicated that there was more land that the Israelites needed to possess. In Joshua 24:1-28 he urged the people to commit themselves anew to the Mosaic Covenant so they might possess and experience all that God had promised their forefathers. These passages confirm that Joshua did not mean by his statement of God"s faithfulness here that Israel had already possessed all that God had promised her forefathers.

"The meaning of the Deuteronomist"s rest theology is clearly seen here [in Joshua 21:44]. Rest is peace, absence of enemies and war. See Joshua 1:12-18. The verse is a counterpart to chap12 , which concluded the first section of the book. It is the

fulfillment of God"s promise in Exodus 33:14. Both major sections of the book thus end with a statement about God"s faithfulness in totally defeating the enemy." [ ote: Butler, p235.]

The point Joshua was making in Joshua 21:45 was that God had been faithful to His promises up to that moment. He had promised possession of the land, rest on every side, and victory over enemies. Israel had experienced all of these to some degree. God had been faithful to the "good promises" He had made to them when they had prepared to cross the Jordan ( Joshua 1:1-9).

It was common among the Semites to regard a part of the whole as the whole (cf. Deuteronomy 26:5-10; 1 Kings 13:32; Jeremiah 31:5; 2 Samuel 5:6-10; Revelation 14:1; Revelation 22:2; Romans 15:19-24). The name for this viewpoint is representative universalism. Some students of this passage believe that Joshua was taking this view here. He was speaking in universal terms. He regarded the individual kings, towns, and areas that he had subdued as representative of the entire land of Canaan. [ ote: For development of this very helpful insight, see A. J. Mattill Jeremiah , "Representative Universalism and the Conquest of Canaan," Concordia Theological Monthly35:1 (1967):8-17. For a short history of the control of Palestine since the time of Christ through1986 , see Ronald Stockton, "Possessing the Land: a chronology of events in the dispute over Palestine," Christianity Today, April18 , 1986 , p19.]

"The small section summarizes the theological point of the book of Joshua. The entire book is to be read in light of these three verses, particularly the last." [ ote: Butler, p236.]

EXPOSITOR'A BIBLE COMME TARY

O FAILURE OF GOD'S PROMISE.

Joshua 21:43-45.

THE historian has reached a point where he may stand still and look back. One look is comparatively limited; another reaches very far. The immediate survey extends only over the last few years; the remote embraces centuries, and goes back to the time of Abraham.

The historian sees the venerable patriarch of the nation among his flocks and herds in Ur of the Chaldees; receiving there a Divine summons to remove to an unknown land; obeying the call, tarrying at Haran, then traversing the desert, and crossing the Jordan. At Shechem, at Bethel, at Mamre, and at Beersheba, he perceives him listening to the Divine voice that promises that, stranger and pilgrim though he was, the Lord would give his posterity all that land; that he would bless those that blessed him, and curse those that cursed him; and that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed.

For one hundred long years Abraham had wandered over the country without so much as a house or homestead in it. Isaac had come after him, living the same pilgrim life. Jacob, with a much more stirring and troubled life, had in his old age gone down to Joseph in Egypt, leaving but one field in the country which he could call his own.

Then came the long centuries of Egyptian bondage. At last the Divine call is heard to leave Egypt, but after this, forty long years have still to be spent in the wilderness. Then Moses, the great leader of the people, dies - dies at the very time when he is apparently most needed, just at the very crisis of Israel's history.

But Joshua comes in Moses' room, and the Lord is with Joshua; He rewards his faith and gives him victory over all his enemies. And now at last comes the fulfilment of the promises to the fathers, hoary with age, and seemingly long forgotten. The bill has at last matured and fallen due. After so many generations, it might be thought that it would have been enough to discharge the main substance of the obligation or that some compromise might have been proposed reducing the claim. After having lain long out of their money, creditors are usually ready to accept a composition. But this was not God's method of settlement. During the whole period of Joshua's leadership, God had been doing nothing but discharging old obligations. ot one word of the original bill had been obliterated; not one item had been allowed to lapse through time. East and west and north and south He had been giving what He had promised to give. And now, as the transaction comes to an end, it is seen that nothing has been omitted or forgotten. "There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken concerning Israel; all came to pass." He proved Himself, as Moses had said, "the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him, and keep His commandments to a thousand generations."

Three gifts are specified which God bestowed on Israel: possessions, rest, and victory. First, He gave them the land which He had sworn to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it; next. He gave them rest round about, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers; and, lastly, He gave them victory over all their enemies. "He satisfied the longing soul, and filled the hungry soul with goodness." He brought His bride to her home, and surrounded her with comforts. And had the bride only been as faithful to her obligations as the Divine bridegroom, it might have been said that

"Time had run back, and fetched the age of gold."

But, it may perhaps be said, - this is only the historian's view of the matter, and it is hardly in accordance with facts. Are we not told that, at an early period, a colony of the tribe of Dan had to go elsewhere in search of land, because they were too hampered in the allotment they had received? And, in the beginning of Judges, are we not told that after the death of Joshua, Judah and Simeon had a desperate tussle with Canaanites and Perizzites who were still in their territories, and that in Bezek

alone there were slain of them ten thousand men? And is not the whole of the first chapter of Judges a record of the relations of Israel in various places to the original inhabitants, from which it appears that very many of the Canaanites continued to dwell in the land? Surely this was not what God's promise to the fathers was fitted to convey. Had not God promised that He would "drive out" the seven nations, and give the seed of Abraham possession of the whole? How then could His word be said to be implemented when so many of the original inhabitants remained? And, in particular, how could the historian of Joshua say so explicitly that "there failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel."

In answer to this objection it is to be remarked that God had never promised to give the people full possession of the land save through their own exertions made in dependence on Him. Their possessions were not to fall into their hands as the manna fell in the wilderness or as the water gushed from the rock. The seven nations were not to rush from before them the moment they crossed the Jordan. God always meant that they were to be His instruments for clearing the country. ow, that clearance was evidently designed to be effected in two ways. First, under Joshua, a general encounter with the former possessors was to take place, their confederacies were to be shattered, their spirit was to be broken, and to a certain extent their lands were to be set free. But beyond this, there was to be a further process of clearing out. When each tribe was settled in its lot, it was to address itself, in detail, to the task of dispossessing such Canaanites as yet lingered there. It might not be expedient that all should be engaged in this task together, for this would necessarily interfere with the ordinary operations of agriculture. It was judged better that it should be done piecemeal, and therefore God was asked to say which of the tribes ought to begin it. Judah was named, and Judah aided by Simeon did his work well, and set a good example to the rest. But the other tribes did not act with Judah's spirit, and therefore they did not enjoy his reward. The testimony of the historian is, that nothing failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. The Lord faithfully performed every part of His obligation. He did not add Israel's obligations to His own, and discharge them too, when they were remiss concerning them. The ultimate result of the whole business was, that trouble befell Israel, inasmuch as he neglected his obligations, while the Lord faithfully performed every one of His. Time therefore did not run back and fetch the age of gold. Israel did not enjoy all the possessions that had been allotted to him. Canaanites remained in the country to torment him like thorns in his sides. But this was Israel's fault, not God's. Though you were to give a lazy farmer the finest farm in the country, you could not make him prosperous if he neglected his fields and idled away the time that should be spent in continuous labour. You cannot keep a man in health if he breathes unwholesome air or drinks water poisoned with putrid matter. o more could Israel be wholly prosperous if he allowed Canaanites to settle quietly at his side. If he had roused himself, and attacked them with courage and in faith, God would have made him to prevail. But, since he preferred ease and quiet to the painfulness of duty, God left him to reap as he had sowed, and suffer the consequences of his neglect. He had seldom long periods of prosperity, and often he had very bitter experiences of calamity and distress.

Certainly God had furnished His people with the materials for a happy and prosperous life, if only they had used them aright. There was first the element of possessions. They had comfortable homes and all the requisites of a comfortable life. It is most true that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." But moderate possessions are one element, though not the chief or most essential of human prosperity. Possessions, however rich or manifold, in connection with a discontented temper, an ungodly spirit, or a selfish nature, can bring no genuine pleasure. In addition to possessions, the Lord had given Israel rest. Their enemies were not disposed to attack them even when dwelling by their side. True it is that the rest into which Joshua brought them was not the true, the ultimate rest. If Joshua had given them that rest, the Holy Spirit would not have spoken of a rest that was still to come (Hebrews 4:8). But external rest, like external possessions though not all, was one contribution towards prosperity. Moreover, none of their enemies had been able to stand before them; in every encounter that had yet taken place the Lord had delivered them into their hand.

This was a blessed presage for the future. Whatever encounters might yet remain, they might count on the same result, if they lifted up their eyes to God. Their life in the future would not be without toil, without anxiety, without danger. But if they looked to Him and made the requisite efforts, God was ready to bless their toil. He was able to overcome their anxieties. He was sure as in the past to subdue their enemies. The gifts that God had conferred on them, and the materials of enjoyment with which He had surrounded them, were not designed to make them independent, as if they could now do everything for themselves. God's purpose was the very reverse. He wished to keep up the sense of dependence on Him, and to encourage at every turn the habit that seeks unto God, and goes to Him for help.

For this, after all, is the great lesson for all human beings. The great thing for us all is to keep up a living connection with God, so that our whole nature shall be replenished out of His fulness, and purified and elevated by His Divine influence. Whatever draws us to God draws us to the fountain of all that is best and purest and noblest. God would have conferred but a poor blessing on Israel if He had just settled them in the land, and then left them to themselves, without any occasion or inducement to fellowship with Him. The inducements to resort to Him which they were to be continually under were by far the most valuable part of what God now conferred upon them. The certainty that all would go wrong, that their possessions would be invaded and their rest disturbed, and that their enemies would prove victorious unless they sought continually to their God, fostered the most precious of all habits - that drawing near to God which brings with it all spiritual blessing.

" earer, my God, to Thee,

earer to Thee! E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me. Still all my song would be earer, my God, to Thee,

earer to Thee "

There is no small amount of instruction to be drawn by all of us from this record of Israel's experience.

First, it is of supreme importance for us all to have our hearts firmly established in the conviction of the faithfulness of God. It should be our habit to regard this as an attribute on which we not only may, but must rely. To ascribe to God any laxity as to His word or promises were to cast a fearful imputation on His holy nature. ''Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away." ''He is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should repent." othing can be conceived that could make it better to God to break His word than to keep it. This is the root of all religion; it is the basis of faith, the true ground of trust. To train our minds to habitual reliance on all that God has said, is one of the most vital and blessed exercises of spiritual religion. It is alike honouring to God and beneficial to ourselves. To search out from the body of Scripture the promises of God; to fasten our attention on them one by one; and to exercise our minds on the thought that in Christ Jesus they are yea, and in Him Amen, is a most blessed help to spiritual stability and spiritual growth. And in our prayers there is nothing more fitted to give us confidence than to plead in this spirit the promises that God has made. o plea is more powerful than the Psalmist's - "Remember Thy word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope." How many sadly perplexed men have found rest from the words: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." "Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it."

But secondly, we may learn from this passage that, wherever the promises of God seem to fail, the fault is not His, but ours. On the one hand, we are taught clearly that delay is not failure, and on the other that where there does seem to be failure there is none really on the part of God. At least five-and-twenty long years elapsed between God's first promise to Abraham and the birth of Isaac. Four hundred years were to be spent by the chosen seed in bondage in Egypt. And even after the deliverance from Egypt there came the sojourn in the wilderness of other forty years. Yet God was faithful all the time. How often we need to recall the text, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day! "Though the vision tarry," do not give it up in despair, but ''wait for it " (Habakkuk 2:3).

Perhaps it is in the matter of answers to prayer that we are most liable to the temptation that God forgets His promises. Have we not the most explicit and abundant promises that prayer will be answered? Yet how many have prayed, and seemingly prayed in vain! ay, does not the very opposite of what we pray for often come? We entreat God to spare a beloved life; that life is taken away We pray for victory over temptation; the temptation seems to acquire a redoubled force. We pray for success in business; the clouds seem to thicken the more. We ask, "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Does His promise fail for evermore?" ay, let us rally our faith. "Then I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High " (Psalms 77:10). If my prayer was not answered, it was not God's fault. It may be that, like Israel, I failed

in my part. I may have been laying the whole burden on God, and omitting something that it fell to me to do. I may have been asking for something that would not have been for my good or for God's glory. I may have failed in that spirit of affectionate trust which is a requisite of acceptable prayer. Let us remember that God knows what things we have need of before we ask Him. And God is infinitely kind and willing to bless us. What He longs for on our part is the spirit of filial trust. What He values prayer for is that it is the channel of this spirit. We can never say that God disregards prayer unless we can say that we approached Him, and spoke to Him like confiding children dealing with a loving father, and He cast us off. But how often do we go to the footstool half hoping, half doubting, instead of going in the full conviction, - "Our gracious Father is sure to hear us; and if He do not give us the precise thing we ask. He is sure to give us something better." Let prayer ever be the outcome of a profound belief in the infinite love of God, and His constant readiness to bless us in Christ; let it be the communing of a child with his father; and let it never be darkened by a shade of suspicion that the Hearer of prayer will not be faithful to His word.

It is the happy experience both of individuals and the Church to have occasional periods of fulfilment - it may be after long periods of expectation and trial. The patriarch Job had a terrible time of trial, when God seemed so untrue to His promises that he was sometimes on the very edge of blaspheming His name. But a time of fulfilment came at last, and through all the mystery of the past Job at length saw "the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy '' (James 5:11). The aged Simeon and the aged Anna in the temple had waited long, but the hour came at last when all that they had been looking for was accomplished, and with a feeling of perfect satisfaction they could sing their " unc dimittis." The souls under the altar of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, when they groaned out their sad "How long?" had still to wait a little season; but the time came when, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands, they attained complete satisfaction, crying with a loud voice, "Salvation to our God that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Revelation 6:10; Revelation 7:10). And in more recent times there have been eras of fulfilment and corresponding rejoicing. When St. Augustine, after year upon year of restless tossing, at length found pardon and peace in Christ; when Columbus, after perils and privations innumerable, at length saw the dim coast which he had often prayed to behold; when Wilberforce heard the slave trade declared an illegal traffic, and Fowell Buxton saw the last fetter struck from the slave in the dominions of Great Britain; when Lord Shaftesbury found the ten hours factory bill turned into law; or when the friends of the slave learned that the President of the United States had signed the proclamation which set four millions at liberty - the old experience of Joshua's days seemed to be repeated, and gratitude to Him who had failed in no good thing was the one feeling that filled the heart. Sometimes the death-bed affords a retrospect that kindles the same emotion. The dying man looks along the way by which he has been led, and, with the walls of the ew Jerusalem gleaming before him, he owns that he has been conducted by the right way to the city of habitation. The objects of earth and heaven are seen by him in a truer light. Valuations are made more accurately on the margin of eternity. The things that have been shaken

and that have perished - of how little value are they seen to be, compared to the things that cannot be shaken! The loving purpose of Divine providence in shattering so many hopes, in defeating so many projects, in inflicting so much pain, is clearly apprehended. The heart is grieved that it was so near charging God foolishly when His purpose was really so merciful and so kind. The bright era of fulfilment is at hand; and even already, while the day is only dawning, the soul can give forth its testimony that "no good thing has failed of all that the Lord hath spoken."

And then at last will come the end of the mystery. The Lord shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the one end of heaven to the other. On the sea of glass mingled with fire they take their stand, having the harps of God, and sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: "Great and marvellous are Thy works. Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." What a scene and what a sensation! What joy in entering on possession of the Promised Land, in experiencing the rest of the redeemed, and in the consciousness that not a single enemy survives to annoy! What delight in the harmonious working of the new nature, in the free and happy play of all its faculties and feelings, and in the conscious presence of a God and Saviour to whose image you have been thoroughly conformed! The last shadow that dimmed your vision on earth shall have fled away; the last vestige of complaint of your earthly lot shall have vanished. Whatever you may have thought once, no other feeling will now occupy your heart but gratitude to Him who has not only not failed to fulfil all His promises, but has done in you exceeding abundantly above all that ye could ask or think!

MACLARE , "Verses 43-45JoshuaTHE E D OF THE WARJoshua 21:43 - Joshua 21:45; Joshua 22:1 - Joshua 22:9.

‘The old order changeth, giving place to new.’ In this passage we have the breaking up of the congregation and the disbanding of the victorious army. The seven years of fighting had come to an end. The swords were to be ‘beaten into plowshares,’ and the comrades who had marched shoulder to shoulder, and shared the fierce excitement of many a bloody field, were to be scattered, each becoming a peaceful farmer or shepherd. A picturesque historian, of the modern ‘special correspondent’ sort, would have overlaid the narrative with sentiment and description; but how quietly the writer tells it, so that we have to bethink ourselves before we apprehend that we are reading the account of an epoch-making event! He fixes attention on two things,- the complete fulfilment of God’s promises [Joshua 21:43 - Joshua 21:45] and the dismissal to their homes of the contingent from the trans-Jordanic tribes, whose departure was the signal that the war was ended Joshua 22:1 - Joshua 22:8}. We may consider the lessons from these two separately.I. The triumphant record of God’s faithfulness [Joshua 21:43 - Joshua 21:45]. These three verses are the trophy reared on the battlefield, like the lion of Marathon, which the Greeks set on its sacred soil. But the only name inscribed on this monument is Jehovah’s. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles

of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. ‘The help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself.’ The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honour that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humble private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the ‘philosophy’ of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel’s victory.That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the church in the world. The difference between the ‘miraculous’ conquest of Canaan and the ‘ordinary’ facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, His acts. In the field of human affairs, as in the realm of nature, God is immanent, though in the former His working is complicated by the mysterious power of man’s will to set itself in antagonism to His; while yet, in manner insoluble to us, His will is supreme. The very powers which are arrayed against Him are His gift, and the issues which they finally subserve are His appointment. It does not need that we should be able to pierce to the bottom of the bottomless in order to attain and hold fast by the great conviction that ‘there is no power but of God,’ and that ‘from Him are all things, and to Him are all things.’Especially does this trophy on the battlefield teach a needful lesson to us in the Christian warfare. We are ever apt to think too much of our visible weapons and leaders, and to forget our unseen and ever-present Commander, from whom comes all our power. We ‘burn incense to our own net, and sacrifice to our own drag,’ and, like the heathen conqueror of whom Habakkuk speaks, make our swords our gods [Habakkuk 1:11, Habakkuk 1:16]. The Church has always been prone to hero-worship, and to the idolatry of its organisation, its methods, or its theology. Augustine did so and so; Luther smote the ‘whited wall’ {the Pope} a blow that made him reel; the Pilgrim Fathers carried a slip of the plant of religious liberty in a tiny pot across the Atlantic, and watered it with tears till it has grown a great tree; the Wesleys revived a formal Church,-let us sing hallelujahs to these great names! By all means; but do not let us forget whence they drew their power; and let us listen to Paul’s question, ‘Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but servants through whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?’And let us carve, deep-cut and indelible, in solitary conspicuousness, on the trophy that we rear on each well-fought field, the name of no man save ‘Jesus only.’ We read that on a pyramid in Egypt the name and sounding titles of the king in whose reign it was erected were blazoned on the plaster facing, but beneath that transitory inscription the name of the architect was hewn, imperishable, in the granite, and stood out when the plaster dropped away. So, when all the short-lived records which ascribe the events of the Church’s progress to her great men have perished, the one name of the true builder will shine out, and ‘at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.’ Let us not rely on our own skill, courage, talents, orthodoxy, or methods, nor try to ‘build tabernacles’ for the witnessing servants beside the central one for the supreme Lord, but ever seek to deepen our conviction that Christ, and Christ only, gives all their powers to all, and that to Him, and Him only, is all victory to be ascribed. That is an elementary and simple truth; but if we really lived in its power

we should go into the battle with more confidence, and come out of it with less self-gratulation.We may note, too, in these verses, the threefold repetition of one thought, that of God’s punctual and perfect fulfilment of His word. He ‘gave unto Israel all the land which He sware to give’; ‘He gave them rest, . . . according to all that He sware’; ‘there failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken.’ It is the joy of thankful hearts to compare the promise with the reality, to lay the one upon the other, as it were, and to declare how precisely their outlines correspond. The finished building is exactly according to the plans drawn long before. God gives us the power of checking His work, and we are unworthy to receive His gifts if we do not take delight in marking and proclaiming how completely He has fulfilled His contract. It is no small part of Christian duty, and a still greater part of Christian blessedness, to do this. Many a fulfilment passes unnoticed, and many a joy, which might be sacred and sweet as a token of love from His own hand, remains common and unhallowed, because we fail to see that it is a fulfilled promise. The eye that is trained to watch for God’s being as good as His word will never have long to wait for proofs that He is so. ‘Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even he shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.’ And to such a one faith will become easier, being sustained by experience; and a present thus manifestly studded with indications of God’s faithfulness will merge into a future still fuller of these. For it does not need that we should wait for the end of the war to have many a token that His every word is true. The struggling soldier can say, ‘ o good thing has failed of all that the Lord has spoken.’ We look, indeed, for completer fulfilment when the fighting is done; but there are ‘brooks by the way’ for the warriors in the thick of the fight, of which they drink, and, refreshed, ‘lift up the head.’ We need not postpone this glad acknowledgment till we can look back and down from the land of peace on the completed campaign, but may rear this trophy on many a field, whilst still we look for another conflict to-morrow.II. The disbanding of the contingent from the tribes across Jordan [Joshua 22:1 -Joshua 22:8]. Forty thousand fighting men, of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh, had willingly helped in the conquest, leaving their own newly-won homes on the eastern side of Jordan, and for seven long years taking their share in the hardships and dangers of their brethren. It was no small tax which they had thus cheerfully paid for the sake of brotherly unity. Their aid had not only been valuable as strengthening Joshua’s force, but still more so as a witness of the unbroken oneness of the nation, and of the sympathy which the tribes already settled bore to the others. Politically, it was wise to associate the whole people in the whole conquest; for nothing welds a nation together like the glories of common victories and the remembrance of common dangers survived. The separation of the trans-Jordanic tribes by the rapid river, and by their pastoral life, was a possible source of weakness, and would, no doubt, have led to more complete severance, if it had not been for the uniting power of the campaign. If the forty thousand had been quietly feeding sheep on the uplands while their brethren were fighting among the stony hills of Canaan, a great gulf would have opened between them. Even as it was, the eastern tribes drifted somewhat away from the western; but the disintegration would have been still more complete if no memories of the war, when all Israel stood side by side, had lived on among them. Their share in the conquest was not only a

piece of policy,-it was the natural expression of the national brotherhood. Even I Joshua had not ordered their presence, it would have been impossible for them to stop in their peacefulness and let their brethren bear the brunt of battle.The law for us is the same as for these warriors. In the family, the city, the nation, the Church, and the world, union with others binds us to help them in their conflicts, and that especially if we are blessed with secure possessions, while they have to struggle for theirs. We are tempted to selfish lives of indulgence in our quiet peace, and sometimes think it hard that we should be expected to buckle on our armour, and leave our leisurely repose, because our brethren ask the help of our arms. If we did as Reuben and Gad did, would there be so many rich men who never stir a finger to relieve poverty, so many Christians whose religion is much more selfish than beneficent? Would so many souls be left to toil without help, to struggle without allies, to weep without comforters, to wander in the dark without a guide? All God’s gifts in providence and in the Gospel are given that we may have somewhat wherewith to bless our less happy brethren. ‘The service of man’ is not the substitute for, but the expression of, Christianity. Are we not kept here, on this side Jordan, away for a time from our inheritance, for the very same reason that these men were separated from theirs,-that we may strike some strokes for God and our fellows in the great war? Dives, who lolls on his soft cushions, and has less pity for Lazarus than the dogs have, is Cain come to life again; and every Christian is either his brother’s keeper or his murderer. Would that the Church of to-day, with infinitely deeper and sacreder ties knitting it to suffering, struggling humanity, had a tithe of the willing relinquishment of legitimate possessions and patient participation in the long campaign for God which kept these rude soldiers faithful to their flag and forgetful of home and ease, till their general gave them their discharge! ote the commander’s parting charge. They were about to depart for a life of comparative separation from the mass of the nation. Their remoteness and their occupations drew them away from the current of the national life, and gave them a kind of quasi-independence. They would necessarily be less directly under Joshua’s control than the other tribes were. He sends them away with one commandment, the Imperative stringency of which is expressed by the accumulation of expressions in Joshua 22:5. They are to give diligent heed to the law of Moses. Their obedience is to be based on love to God, who is their God no less than the God of the other tribes. It is to be comprehensive-they are ‘to walk in all His ways’; it is to be resolute-they are ‘to cleave to Him’; it is to be wholehearted and whole-souled service, that will be the true bond between the separated parts of the whole. Independence so limited will be harmless; and, however wide apart their paths may lie, Israel will be one. In like manner the bond that knits all divisions of God’s people together, however different their modes of life and thought, however unlike their homes and their work, is the similarity of relation to God. They are one in a common faith, a common love, a common obedience. Wider waters than Jordan part them. Graver differences of tasks and outlooks than separated these two sections of Israel part them. But all are one who love and obey the one Lord. The closer we cleave to Him, the nearer we shall be to all His tribes.We need only note in a word how these departing soldiers, leaving the battlefield with their commander’s praise and benediction, laden with much wealth, the spoil

of their enemies, and fording the stream to reach the peaceful homes, which had long stood ready for them, may be taken, by a permissible play of fancy, as symbols of the faithful servants and soldiers of the true Joshua, at the end of their long warfare passing to the ‘kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world,’ bearing in their hands the wealth which, by God’s grace, they had conquered from out of things here. They are not sent away by their Commander, but summoned by Him to the great peace of His own presence; and while His lips give them the praise which is praise indeed, they inscribe on the perpetual memorial which they rear no name but His, who first wrought all their works in them, and now has ordained eternal peace for them.

PETT, "A Summary of the Situation Preparatory to Releasing the Transjordan Contingents (Joshua 21:43-45).

This summary assesses the situation at the end of Joshua’s successful campaign, as he was preparing to release the Transjordan contingents from Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. Canaan was being divided up between the tribes and all looked rosy. They saw the land as given to them, as indeed it was. They did not consider the problems that lay ahead, or if they did they were content that Yahweh could deal with them. In the writer’s view these should not have been problems. If they were faithful to the covenant with YHWH and obeyed all His commandments the future was guaranteed.

Joshua 21:43

‘So YHWH gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers, and they possessed it, and dwelt in it.’For these words compare Joshua 1:6; Deuteronomy 11:31; Deuteronomy 17:14; Deuteronomy 19:1; Deuteronomy 26:1.

The land was all distributed to them by lot and now they had to go in and settle it. They were securely established in the land and safe. The bridgehead had been established, and more. And the process of settlement was in progress. Indeed they had at present on the whole as much as they could hope to occupy and cultivate. The remainder would become theirs as time progressed, at which point they were to clear it of Canaanites.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:43

And the Lord gave. The LXX. adds before this passage: "And Joshua completed the division of the land in its boundaries, and the children gave a portion to Joshua, by the commandment of the Lord. They gave to him the city for which he asked, Thamnath Sarach gave they him in Mount Ephraim, and Joshua built the city, and dwelt in it. And Joshua took the stone knives, with which he had circumcised the children of Israel, which were in the way in the wilderness, and he placed them in Tamnath Sarach." The repetition is very much in the manner of the sacred historian, and it is possible that we have here an authentic passage, which some

copyist has omitted in the Hebrew text. All the land. As has been before remarked, the Hebrew כל must not be pressed to mean literally "all." Yet, in a sense, the word is true here. The land had been put in their power. They had only to exert themselves to complete its conquest. This they failed to do, and not only so, but violated the conditions under which the land was granted them. Thus they soon fell under the dominion of those who had been their own vassals. Ritter thinks that the Asherites and Danites submitted to the inhabitants of the land in consequence of being allowed equal citizen rights with them. He draws this inference from 5:17, supposing that these tribes addicted themselves to the commercial and maritime life for which the Phoenicians were so famous.

44 The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. ot one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands.

GILL, "And the Lord gave them rest round about,.... Not only from their travels, with which they had been fatigued forty years in the wilderness, but from wars with the Canaanites they had been engaged in for some years past:

according to all that he sware unto their fathers; not only to give them the land, but peace, rest, and safety in it:

and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; for whenever any rose up to oppose them, they were immediately cut off: this is to be understood while Joshua was living; for afterwards, sinning against God, they were again and again delivered up into the hands of their enemies:

the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands; that is, that made war with them.

BE SO , "Joshua 21:44. The Lord gave them rest round about — amely, all the remaining days of Joshua; for afterward it was otherwise with them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands — This is not to be understood as if all the people of Canaan were absolutely in subjection to them, but that as long as Joshua lived, all those who attempted to oppose or rise up against them were

delivered into their power and subdued.

WHEDO , "44. There stood not a man — The many were humbled and rendered tributary, and all their enemies would have been expelled if the Hebrews had had faith in Jehovah, their unfailing ally. [Some rationalistic critics affirm that this passage is contradicted by other statements of the ancient history which affirm that Israel’s enemies were not all subdued, and considerable portions of the land were never in possession of the Israelites. But they forget that the promise to the fathers was accompanied also with the express statement that the Canaanites should be gradually exterminated. See note on next verse. This passage affirms a thorough subjugation of all Canaan, and a division of it for a possession among the Israelites, but not, as some would assume, an extermination of all its original inhabitants. Even Ewald admits, as unquestionable, “that this first irruption into Canaan under Joshua was decisive for all future time, and that the Canaanites were never able in succeeding ages to rally permanently from the losses and disasters which they then underwent.” In another place the same rationalistic critic affirms: “There can be no doubt that Joshua, during the first years of the entrance into Canaan, subdued the country on every side, and received the submission of all the Canaanites whose lives were spared. It is very possible that in the first terror of surprise the Philistines, and even the men of Zidon and the rest of the Phenicians, may have paid homage, although these last could never again be subdued.”]

PETT, "Joshua 21:44-45

‘And YHWH gave them rest round about according to all that he swore to their fathers and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them. YHWH delivered all their enemies into their hands. There failed not ought of any good thing that YHWH had spoken to the house of Israel. All came about.’These words are also based on previous statements and promises, compare Joshua 1:13; Joshua 10:8. What God had promised He had done.

The storms ahead were not yet visible, and the writer believed that God could deal with the storms as long as Israel were faithful to the covenant. They were at rest in the land. They had suffered no permanent defeat to this stage. All their enemies had in the end fallen before them. All that God had promised had happened. The Transjordan contingents could now be released to return home.

The writer has in mind chapters 1-12. Chapters 13-21 are viewed as still future in actual fulfilment. That was what yet had to be. Thus he could declare that the land was at rest (Joshua 11:23; Joshua 14:15) although much land remained to be possessed (Joshua 13:1), and even more to be settled.

ISBET, "REST AT LAST!‘Rest round about.’Joshua 21:44The conquest is ended, and the distribution of the land is completed. The time has now come for the peaceable possession and cultivation of the land. During the whole

of this time, the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, already settled on the east side of the Jordan, have been helping their brethren on the west side of Jordan. The time seems now to have come for their return home.

I. Recapitulation.—This portion of the Book of Joshua relates how, in accordance with the earlier injunction, given in umbers 35, three cities on either side of the Jordan were set apart as cities of refuge for innocent homicides; how also, for the Levites, forty-eight cities, with their pasture land, including the six cities of refuge, were drawn from the other tribes, and assigned by lot to the three Levitical clans, and how, then, the eastern tribes were dismissed by Joshua in peace, being heartily commended by Joshua for their unselfish service. These tribes, on the way back, erected a memorial altar. This being regarded as idolatrous by the western tribes, was inquired into, but the offenders proved clearly that the altar signified neither rebellion nor a new sacrificial centre, but merely stood as a witness of their kinship and sympathy with the western tribes. Their plea was effective. The deputation accepted it, commended the piety of their brethren, and reported to the nation that the incident was worthy of praise.

II. The nation’s unity.—These details emphasise the strong and hopeful spirit of unity manifested by the people. That this should appear is surely not strange, after the inspiring leadership of Joshua and his judicious management of the allotment of the land.

Joshua 21:43–5 puts delightfully the writer’s view of the work of Joshua in this age. ‘So the Lord gave,’ as in the Revised Version, though but a slight alteration, makes an important difference. The people were now in actual possession of the land promised to their fathers. In one sense it was theirs by conquest, but they had conquered only as far as they had received Divine help, and had obeyed the Divine will. Individually it was theirs also by Divine appointment—for it had been divided to them by lot. ‘Promised.’ The promise was first made centuries before, to Abraham. But time neither annuls nor invalidates God’s promises. ‘The Lord gave them rest,’ etc. The rest was twofold, from the wilderness wanderings, and from the perils of war. But the rest was not absolute. The Apostle uses it as a type of the true rest in Christ (Hebrews 4:8-9, R.V.). one of the Israelites were now in arms against them. Most of those who remained were in subjection and paid tribute. The subsequent ascendancy of the Canaanites at certain periods was the effect of the cowardice and slothfulness of the Israelites; and may be regarded as the punishment of their sinful tendencies towards idolatry.

III. The Divine faithfulness.—‘There failed not,’ etc. ote how the writer dwells upon the Divine faithfulness. God takes His own time—to us it may seem a long time—to make good His promises. But he who can wait God’s time will always prove the truth of God’s promises. God royally fulfils His part of His covenants. Delays and failures are always found to be due to the over-confidence, or cowardice, or inertness, of those who have the right to trust His promises and go ahead.

Illustrations

(1) ‘“There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel.” The verse would end well there, but that is not a full stop. After the word “Israel” there is but a semicolon. Four words remain which contain all we want to know about God’s promises and God’s dispensations. These four words are all of one syllable. They might form a child’s first lesson in reading. “All came to pass.” What a testimony for the old man to bear! What more could be said? The note of hand had matured and been redeemed. The promised harvest had grown into golden abundance, and had been reaped and garnered.’

(2) ‘Here is the triumphant record of God’s faithfulness. But the only name inscribed thereon is Jehovah’s. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. “The help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself.” The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honour that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humbler private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the “philosophy” of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel’s victory. That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the church in the world. The difference between the “miraculous” conquest of Canaan and the “ordinary” facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, His acts.’

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:44

And the Lord gave them rest. LXX. κατέπαυσεν. The student of Scripture will not fail to recall the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Joshua 4:8) in which reference is made to this passage, and especially to the LXX. version of it. The word signifies rather rest from wandering than rest from toil, though in some passages (e.g. Exodus 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14) it has the latter signification (cf. Deuteronomy 12:10). Round about. Or, from round about, i.e; from the assaults of the surrounding nations. According to all that he sware (Exodus 33:14). There stood not a man of all their enemies before them. This was true, as far as the present history is concerned. We read that the Ephraimites did not, or "could not," drive out their enemies, and that the other tribes also failed to obtain complete possession of the land. But

How could it be otherwise? Had the same faith been theirs which caused the Jordan to dry up, and the towers of Jericho to fall down at their march, which discomfited one vast confederacy at Beth-horon, and annihilated another vast confederacy, even better supplied with munitions of war at Lake Merom, they could not have failed to root out the scanty remnant of their humiliated and disheartened foes. As has already been remarked (see Joshua 11:23, note), it was from no neglect on Joshua's part that this was not done at once, for it had been God's own command that it

should not be done, lest the country should become a desert (Deuteronomy 7:22). Calvin concludes a similar argument with the words, "nothing but their own cowardice prevented them from enjoying the blessings of God in all their fulness."

45 ot one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

GILL, "There failed not ought of any good thing,.... Not only every good thing in general, but every part and particular of that good thing; that, with all that was included in it, or were appendages to it, or circumstances of it:

which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel; as of their deliverance out of Egypt, and passage through the Red sea and wilderness, with all conveniences for them therein; so of their passage through Jordan, success of their arms, the conquest of their enemies, possession of their land, a land flowing with milk and honey:

all came to pass; exactly, precisely, and punctually, even everything relative to their temporal and spiritual good: so all that God promises to his spiritual Israel, with respect to their present comfort or everlasting happiness, all is exactly fulfilled, all his promises in Christ are yea and amen.

K&D, "Jos_21:45

Of all the good words which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel not one had

fallen, i.e., remained unfulfilled (Num_6:12); all had come to pass (vid., Jos_23:14). ַה�ּוב

relates to the gracious promises of God with regard to the peaceful possession of ָ�ל־ַהָ�ָבר

Canaan, which formed the basis of all the salvation promised to Israel, and the pledge of the fulfilment of all the further promises of God. Notwithstanding the fact that many a tract of country still remained in the hands of the Canaanites, the promise that the land of Canaan should be given to the house of Israel for a possession had been fulfilled; for God had not promised the immediate and total destruction of the Canaanites, but only their gradual extermination (Exo_23:29-30; Deu_7:22). And even though the Israelites never came into undisputed possession of the whole of the promised land, to the full extent of the boundaries laid down in Num_34:1-12, never conquering Tyre and Sidon for example, the promises of God were no more broken on that account than they were through the circumstance, that after the death of Joshua and the elders his contemporaries, Israel was sometimes hard pressed by the Canaanites; since the complete fulfilment of this promise was inseparably connected with the fidelity of Israel to the Lord.

(Note: With reference to this apparent discrepancy between the promises of God

and the actual results, Calvin observes, that “in order to remove every appearance of discrepancy, it is right to distinguish well between the clear, unwavering, and certain fidelity of God in the fulfilment of His promises, and the weakness and indolence of the people, which caused the blessings of God to slip from their hands. Whatever war the people undertook, in whatever direction they carried their standards, there was victory ready to their hand; nor was there anything to retard or prevent the extermination of all their enemies except their own slothfulness. Consequently, although they did not destroy them all, so as to empty the land for their own possession, the truth of God stood out as distinctly as if they had; for there would have been no difficulty in their accomplishment of all that remained to be done, if they had only been disposed to grasp the victories that were ready to their hand.”)

COKE, "Verse 45Ver. 45. There failed not ought of any good thing, &c.— Whatever God had promised them was effected in proportion to the efforts they had made on their part, under sanction of the right which God had given them, and in order to the drawing down upon them his blessing by their obedience to his laws. On this obedience depended the final accomplishment of the divine promises in future times, according as their necessities required, and, to use Pelican's words, "all this process, in a very evident manner, shows the faithfulness of God, the confidence which his children should place in his promises, and the reliance they ought to have thereon even when he seems slow in the performance of them."

REFLECTIO S.—The experience of God's Israel will ever confirm the faithfulness of his promises. The land which had been so long expected is now possessed; their enemies are subdued, their habitations large and peaceable; no foe remained to interrupt their quiet, or endanger their persons. Some Canaanites indeed were left, but they only were spared to keep possession against the beasts of the field, till Israel were multiplied to occupy the land; and if they afterwards prevailed, the Israelites would have only to blame their own sloth, cowardice, unbelief, and sin, which robbed them of their portion. All the people solemnly acknowledge the exact accomplishment of the Divine promises; which is repeated, 1 Kings 8:56.; and all who are faithful to him shall find, to their everlasting comfort, that one jot or tittle shall never pass away from his word until the whole be fulfilled.

BE SO , "Verse 45Joshua 21:45. There failed not aught — Which they themselves, as Joshua afterward tells them, (Joshua 23:14,) knew very well, and could not but confess. But it must be understood according to the explication given verse

43. For the time of fulfilling some part of the divine promises was not yet come, and the entire completion of what was already begun was partly conditional, and depended on their obedience to God. All came to pass — Such an acknowledgment as this, here subscribed by Joshua, in the name of all Israel, we afterward find made by Solomon; and all Israel did, in effect, say amen to it, 1 Kings 8:56. The inviolable truth of God’s promise, and the performance of it to the uttermost, is what all

believers in Christ have been always ready to bear their testimony to. And if in any thing it has seemed to come short, they have been as ready to take all the blame to themselves.

WHEDO , "45. There failed not aught of any good — So far as Jehovah was concerned, for he had expressly said, “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.” Exodus xxiii, 29, 30. Comp. Deuteronomy 7:22. Israel’s subsequent failure to possess all the land was, as the history itself shows, largely owing to their cowardice. Tribal jealousies also had much to do with their failure.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:45

Ought of any good thing. Literally, a word from all the good word. This Keil regards as the "sum of all the gracious promises that God had made." But he should have added that ָדָבר, beside signifying, as it does, "word," is also the word for "thing" in Hebrew (see, for instance, Genesis 15:1 ; Genesis 20:10), and innumerable other passages, as well as the use of א ָדָברn for "nothing." The translation "thing" makes the best sense, and is more agreeable to the Hebrew idiom. All came to pass. The Hebrew is singular, the whole came, the word translated "came to pass "in our version being a different one from that usually so translated.

PULPIT, "Joshua 21:45

The record of God's faithfulness.

A beautiful little word, recording a nation's experience, and one adopted as the correct statement of the experience of multitudes that none can number! Look at it, and observe first—

I. GOD SPEAKS GOOD THI GS TO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL. "Good things," i.e; "of its future: exceeding great and precious promises—words on which He causes us to hope." Man lives not in the present only. The past clings to him; the future presses on him. Especially this future—near and further! Our bliss comes chiefly from its hopes, our sorrows from its fears. With the present it is easy to deal; its form is fixed, and we can determine at once how to meet it. But the future is filled with "maybes" so indefinite and changeful in their form that we cannot settle how to meet or what to do with them. In the case of Israel, God covered all this darkness with His good words of hope. He would go before them; they should be brought to a land flowing with milk and honey; no enemy should stand before them; vineyards they had not planted, cities they had not built, should be theirs. They should find an earthly dwelling place singularly suited for their habitation: fertile for their sustenance, secure for their safety, central for the diffusion of their truth. So God speaks to all His Israel. To every one some promise is given. Even His prodigal

children have some promise to cheer them. His sun of promise rises on the evil and on the good; but on the good it sheds its richest warmth. There are great words given to us. Providential mercies are promised; support of the Spirit of all grace is assured us: the Voice behind saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it:" and that temptation s shall not overpower, nor inward weakness destroy us; that we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us; that death itself shall be a ministering angel, wrestling with us, but blessing us at "break of day;" that there will be an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom, a perfected likeness to our Lord, an occupation before the throne, in which all our power will find delight and all our capacities be filled with satisfaction. These are the pledges given us. It is well to realise how vast they are, how worthy of the generosity of the infinite God. Be not dismayed, there is no sorrow whose consolation is not pledged in some word of promise, and no perplexity the solution of which is not tendered in some other. Marvel not that the words seem too vast to belong to us. The dimensions of mercy are Divine. Put against every thought of fear these words of comfort and of hope. We are sad and fearful chiefly because we forget them. God speaks good things unto Israel. Observe secondly—

II. IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE THAT THESE WORDS SHOULD OT FAIL. When Moses brought them, the people "believed not for anguish of splint and cruel bondage." How could such promises be redeemed? They, a nation of slaves, whose spirit was ground out of them; their oppressor having a standing army, strong in cavalry? Impossibilities multiplied as they advanced. By the route they took they found themselves hemmed in by ranges of hills on either hand, sea in front, foe behind them. How could they reach the other side? There were desert difficulties, or rather impossibilities, as to water and food. How could they possibly dispossess the Canaanitish nations, all of them stronger than themselves—these peoples of Gilead in their fortresses, impregnable by nature, and rendered still more so by consummate art and by the marvellous vigour of the inhabitants? Without artillery of any kind, how could it be deemed a possibility to reduce the fenced cities of the Canaanites? How was Jordan to be crossed, with its deep ravine and swift stream that made it one of the strongest lines of defence that any nation ever had? Ten out of the twelve spies—all of them of course chosen for their courage—declared the task an utter impossibility. And it is worth our while to mark this, for there is a sort of family likeness running through all God's promises; and almost all have this look of impossibility about them. I suppose all spies are apt to feel that the promises God has made to us cannot possibly be fulfilled. One battling with doubts deems continuance in saintly living impossible, though God promises grace sufficient. One battling with strong proneness to sin feels it impossible that a feeble seed of grace should survive and conquer forces so much stronger than itself. The promise of usefulness resulting from our labour seems impossible of fulfilment, so does the promise of answers to our prayers. The promise of some survival of death and of our fragile spirit weathering all storms, and reaching a perfect home, seems impossible to be fulfilled. It is well to mark exactly the force of the favourite promises. They are not poor probabilities. They are the grand impossibilities of life. The supernatural enters into all our hopes. They cannot be realised unless God troubles Himself about them. We must not try and eke out faith with the

consideration of natural probabilities. The natural probabilities are all against any one of the grander promises being fulfilled. But thirdly observe—

III. ALL THE PROMISES WERE FULFILLED. "All came to pass." There failed not ought of any good thing the Lord had spoken. The sea was crossed; the desert had its food and water; Bashan was subdued; Jordan crossed; the whole land possessed. And all this took place easily, without any hitch whatever, so long as Israel was willing simply to go on. And from then till now the experience of the Church of Christ has, on a large scale and with invariable uniformity, been, that however impossible the fulfilment of God's promises might seem, they have all been realised exceeding abundantly above all asked or thought. God is the same today as yesterday: not further from us in heart, not feebler in powers. His anointing is not exhausted; He is still fresh to do what He has promised. And if we faithfully follow on in the way in which He leads us, there will not fail ought of the good that God hath spoken to us.—G.