35:5 “You must measure 8 from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, 9 and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. 10 This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns.
35:1 11 Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the Moabite plains by the Jordan near Jericho. 12 He said:
6:1 13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses:
6:1 14 Then the Lord spoke to Moses:
1 tn Heb “to their brothers.”
2 tn Heb “like great, like small” (i.e., old and young alike).
3 tn Heb “And.”
4 sn This refers to the region of fields just outside and surrounding the city where cattle were kept and garden crops were grown (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 177).
5 tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive: “command…and they will give,” or “that they give.”
6 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “one thousand cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) in length, so this would be a distance of 1,500 feet or 500 yards (675 meters).
8 tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.
9 tn Heb “two thousand cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (1,350 meters).
10 sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land – in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of two thousand cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”
11 sn This section has two main parts, the Levitical cities (vv. 1-8) and the Cities of Refuge (vv. 9-34).
12 map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.
13 sn This chapter can be divided into five sections: The vow is described in vv. 1-8, then the contingencies for defilement are enumerated in vv. 9-12, then there is a discussion of discharging the vows in vv. 13-20, and then a summary in v. 21; after this is the high priestly blessing (vv. 22-27). For information on the vow, see G. B. Gray, “The Nazirite,” JTS 1 (1899-1900): 201-11; Z. Weisman, “The Biblical Nazirite, Its Types and Roots,” Tarbiz 36 (1967): 207-20; and W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (OTL), 1:303-6.
14 sn This chapter can be divided into five sections: The vow is described in vv. 1-8, then the contingencies for defilement are enumerated in vv. 9-12, then there is a discussion of discharging the vows in vv. 13-20, and then a summary in v. 21; after this is the high priestly blessing (vv. 22-27). For information on the vow, see G. B. Gray, “The Nazirite,” JTS 1 (1899-1900): 201-11; Z. Weisman, “The Biblical Nazirite, Its Types and Roots,” Tarbiz 36 (1967): 207-20; and W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (OTL), 1:303-6.