Ezekiel 44:28

44:28 “‘This will be their inheritance: I am their inheritance, and you must give them no property in Israel; I am their property. ¹ 

Ezekiel 45:4

45:4 It will be a holy portion of the land; it will be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary who approach the Lord to minister to him. It will be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary. ² 

Numbers 35:1-9

The Levitical Cities

35:1 ³ Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the Moabite plains by the Jordan near Jericho. ⁴  He said: 35:2 “Instruct the Israelites to give ⁵  the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites ⁶  will possess. You must also give the Levites grazing land around the towns. 35:3 Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals. 35:4 The grazing lands around the towns that you will give to the Levites must extend to a distance of 500 yards ⁷  from the town wall.

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. 35:6 Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ¹¹  And you must give them forty-two other towns.

35:7 “So the total of the towns you will give the Levites is forty-eight. You must give these together with their grazing lands. 35:8 The towns you will give must be from the possession of the Israelites. From the larger tribes you must give more; and from the smaller tribes fewer. Each must contribute some of its own towns to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance allocated to each.

The Cities of Refuge

35:9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses:

Joshua 21:1-45

Levitical Cities

21:1 The tribal leaders of the Levites went before Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun and the Israelite tribal leaders 21:2 in Shiloh in the land of Canaan and said, “The Lord told Moses to assign us cities in which to live along with the grazing areas for our cattle.” 21:3 So the Israelites assigned these cities and their grazing areas to the Levites from their own holdings, as the Lord had instructed.

21:4 The first lot belonged to ¹²  the Kohathite clans. The Levites who were descendants of Aaron the priest were allotted thirteen cities from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. 21:5 The rest of Kohath’s descendants were allotted ten cities from the clans of the tribe of Ephraim, and from the tribe of Dan and the half-tribe of Manasseh. 21:6 Gershon’s descendants were allotted thirteen cities from the clans of the tribe of Issachar, and from the tribes of Asher and Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. 21:7 Merari’s descendants by their clans were allotted twelve cities from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun. 21:8 So the Israelites assigned to the Levites by lot these cities and their grazing areas, as the Lord had instructed Moses.

21:9 They assigned from the tribes of Judah and Simeon the cities listed below. 21:10 They were assigned to the Kohathite clans of the Levites who were descendants of Aaron, ¹³  for the first lot belonged to them. 21:11 They assigned them Kiriath Arba (Arba was the father of Anak), that is, Hebron, in the hill country of Judah, along with its surrounding grazing areas. 21:12 (Now the city’s fields and surrounding towns they had assigned to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his property.) 21:13 So to the descendants of Aaron the priest they assigned Hebron (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter), Libnah, 21:14 Jattir, Eshtemoa, 21:15 Holon, Debir, 21:16 Ain, Juttah, and Beth Shemesh, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of nine cities taken from these two tribes. 21:17 From the tribe of Benjamin they assigned ¹⁴  Gibeon, Geba, 21:18 Anathoth, and Almon, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities. 21:19 The priests descended from Aaron received thirteen cities and their grazing areas.

21:20 The rest of the Kohathite clans of the Levites were allotted cities from the tribe of Ephraim. 21:21 They assigned them Shechem (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter) in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer, 21:22 Kibzaim, and Beth Horon, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities. 21:23 From the tribe of Dan they assigned Eltekeh, Gibbethon, 21:24 Aijalon, and Gath Rimmon, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities. 21:25 From the half-tribe of Manasseh they assigned Taanach and Gath Rimmon, ¹⁵  along with the grazing areas of each – a total of two cities. 21:26 The rest of the Kohathite clans received ten cities and their grazing areas.

21:27 They assigned to the Gershonite clans of the Levites the following cities: ¹⁶  from the half-tribe of Manasseh: Golan in Bashan (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter) and Beeshtarah, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of two cities; 21:28 from the tribe of Issachar: Kishon, Daberath, 21:29 Jarmuth, and En Gannim, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities; 21:30 from the tribe of Asher: Mishal, Abdon, 21:31 Helkath, and Rehob, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities; 21:32 from the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter), Hammoth Dor, and Kartan, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of three cities. 21:33 The Gershonite clans received thirteen cities and their grazing areas.

21:34 They assigned to the Merarite clans (the remaining Levites) the following cities: from the tribe of Zebulun: Jokneam, Kartah, 21:35 Dimnah, and Nahalal, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities; 21:36 ¹⁷  from the tribe of Reuben: Bezer, Jahaz, 21:37 Kedemoth, and Mephaath, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities; 21:38 from the tribe of Gad: Ramoth in Gilead (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter), Mahanaim, 21:39 Heshbon, and Jazer, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of four cities. 21:40 The Merarite clans (the remaining Levites) were allotted twelve cities.

21:41 The Levites received within the land owned by the Israelites ¹⁸  forty-eight cities in all and their grazing areas. 21:42 Each of these cities had grazing areas around it; they were alike in this regard. ¹⁹ 

21:43 So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had solemnly promised to their ancestors, ²⁰  and they conquered ²¹  it and lived in it. 21:44 The Lord made them secure, ²²  in fulfillment of all he had solemnly promised their ancestors. ²³  None of their enemies could resist them. ²⁴  21:45 Not one of the Lord’s faithful promises to the family of Israel ²⁵  was left unfulfilled; every one was realized. ²⁶ 

Matthew 10:10

10:10 no bag ²⁷  for the journey, or an extra tunic, ²⁸  or sandals or staff, ²⁹  for the worker deserves his provisions.

Matthew 10:1

Sending Out the Twelve Apostles

10:1 Jesus ³⁰  called his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits ³¹  so they could cast them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness. ³² 

Colossians 1:13-14

1:13 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, ³³  1:14 in whom we have redemption, ³⁴  the forgiveness of sins.

[44:28]  ¹ sn See Num 18:20; Deut 10:9; 18:2; Josh 13:33; 18:7.

[45:4]  ² tc The LXX apparently understood “open land” instead of “sanctuary.”

[35:1]  ³ sn This section has two main parts, the Levitical cities (vv. 1-8) and the Cities of Refuge (vv. 9-34).

[35:1]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[35:2]  ⁵ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive: “command…and they will give,” or “that they give.”

[35:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[35:4]  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).

[35:5]  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.

[35:5]  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).

[35:5]  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).”

[35:6]  ¹¹ tn The “manslayer” is the verb “to kill” in a participial form, providing the subject of the clause. The verb means “to kill”; it can mean accidental killing, premeditated killing, or capital punishment. The clause uses the infinitive to express purpose or result: “to flee there the manslayer,” means “so that the manslayer may flee there.”

[21:4]  ¹² tn Heb “came out for.”

[21:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “and it belonged to the sons of Aaron, from the Kohathite clans, from the sons of Levi.”

[21:17]  ¹⁴ tn The words “they assigned” are supplied for clarification (also in vv. 23, 25).

[21:25]  ¹⁵ tn The name “Gath Rimmon” is problematic here, for it appears in the preceding list of Danite cities. The LXX reads “Iebatha”; 1 Chr 6:55 HT (6:70 ET) reads “Bileam.” Most modern translations retain the name “Gath Rimmon,” however.

[21:27]  ¹⁶ tn The words “they assigned” and “the following cities” are supplied for clarification (also in v. 34).

[21:36]  ¹⁷ tc 21:36-37 are accidentally omitted from a number of significant Hebrew mss. They are, however, found in some Hebrew mss, the LXX and Vulgate.

[21:41]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in the midst of the possession of the sons of Israel.”

[21:42]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “these cities were city [by] city, and its grazing areas [were] around it; so [it was] for all these cities.”

[21:43]  ²⁰ tn Heb “which he had sworn to give to their fathers.”

[21:43]  ²¹ tn Or “possessed.”

[21:44]  ²² tn Heb “gave them rest all around.”

[21:44]  ²³ tn Heb “according to all he swore to their fathers.”

[21:44]  ²⁴ tn Heb “not a man stood from before them from all their enemies.”

[21:45]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the house of Israel.” Cf. NCV “the Israelites”; TEV “the people of Israel”; CEV, NLT “Israel.”

[21:45]  ²⁶ tn Heb “not a word from all the good word which the Lord spoke to the house of Israel fell; the whole came to pass.”

[10:10]  ²⁷ tn Or “no traveler’s bag”; or possibly “no beggar’s bag” (L&N 6.145; BDAG 811 s.v. πήρα).

[10:10]  ²⁸ tn Grk “two tunics.” See the note on the word “tunic” in Matt 5:40.

[10:10]  ²⁹ sn Mark 6:8 allows one staff. It might be that Matthew’s summary (cf. Luke 9:3) means not taking an extra staff or that the expression is merely rhetorical for “traveling light” which has been rendered in two slightly different ways.

[10:1]  ³⁰ tn Grk “And he.”

[10:1]  ³¹ sn Unclean spirits refers to evil spirits.

[10:1]  ³² tn Grk “and every [kind of] sickness.” Here “every” was not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:13]  ³³ tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).

[1:14]  ³⁴ tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.