Joshua 21:10-18

Ver. 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.