Numbers 35:4

Object. In the next verse it is two thousand. How do these agree? Answ.

1. LXX. interpreters read both here and Numbers 35:5 two thousand cubits, whence some suppose this to be an error in the Hebrew text, which, being in a matter neither concerning faith nor good manners, is not prejudicial to the authority of the Holy Scriptures. Answ.

2. The one thousand cubits may be in length from the city, and the two thousand cubits in breadth on each side of the city, and so they well agree; for a line of a thousand cubits being draw in length eastward, and another westward, and another northward, and another southward, a line drawn at a thousand cubits distance from the city, from east to west, must needs contain two thousand cubits, and so must the other line from north to south, and so on every side of the city there must be two thousand cubits. Answ.

3. This verse and the next do not speak to the same thing: this speaks of the space or place from whence the suburbs shall be measured, the next verse speaks of the space unto which that measure shall be extended; and the words may very well be read thus, And the suburbs shall be (so it is only an ellipsis of the verb substantive, which is most frequent, and the meaning is, shall be taken or accounted) from the wall of the city, and from (that particle being supplied or understood from the foregoing words, which is very usual) without it, or, from the outward parts of it, (which being a general and indefinite expression is limited and explained by the following words,) even from a thousand cubits round about; which are mentioned not as the thing measured, for as yet there is not a word of measuring, but as the term or space from which the measuring line should begin. And then it follows, Numbers 35:5, And ye shall measure from without the city (not from the wall of the city, as was said before, Numbers 35:4, but from without it, i.e. from the said outward part or space of a thousand cubits without the wall of the city round about) on the east side two thousand cubits, &c. So in truth there were three thousand cubits from the wall of the city, whereof one thousand probably were for out-houses, stalls for cattle, gardens, vineyards, and olive-yards, and the like, and the other two thousand for pasture, which are therefore called the field of the suburbs, Leviticus 25:34, by way of distinction from the suburbs themselves, which consist of the first thousand cubits from the wall of the city.