Numbers 35:4-5

The suburbs of the cities shall reach, &c.— In the version of the LXX, instead of a thousand cubits round about, it is two thousand cubits, which, from the next verse, appears evidently to have been the true and original reading; a reading which entirely removes all those difficulties wherewith the passage otherwise is loaded, and which commentators have so laboriously endeavoured to remove. The plain meaning seems to be, that the suburbs of these cities, whether from the wall, or from the centre of the city, as Le Clerc would render it, were to be two thousand cubits in extent on every side, the city standing in the midst. The reader, desirous to enter into the critical disquisitions of this subject, will find sufficient matter in almost every commentator, particularly in Calmet, Houbigant, Scheuchzer, and Le Clerc. If, however, this reading of the LXX should not be approved, we may well follow Mr. Lowman's interpretation: "In measuring from the wall of the city outward," says he, "the law appoints one thousand cubits only, not two thousand; which Grotius seems well to express by spatium mille cubitorum accessio urbium: it was but one thousand cubits to the cities. The next verse, indeed, directs that you shall measure from without the city, on the east side, two thousand cubits, and so each way. At first view, it is plain, that these two directions cannot be meant of the same measure from and to the very place, or from the walls of the city to the end of the ground without the walls; it must be meant of different measures, and therefore of different places. In the first case, measure from the walls outward to the end of the suburbs, and it will be one thousand cubits; in the other case, measure from without the city, or from the end of the suburbs inward, and so into the city, and to the centre of the whole ground, and it will be two thousand cubits each way. This gives a just and easy sense to these directions, and the difference is no more than measuring outward from the walls in one case, and from the parts without the city into the city itself in the other case: so that one measure gives the contents of the suburbs alone, the other the contents of the suburbs and cities together; yet, as it is thought by some, that the areas of the cities are not included in the four thousand cubits square, let the addition be made for the areas of the cities: what shall it be, one thousand, fifteen hundred, or two thousand cubits square? Be it two thousand; and then, the whole being a square of six thousand cubits, or thirty-six millions of square cubits, will be somewhat more than as much again as the former computation, or as thirty-six to sixteen. Let then, if you will, an allowance be made to the Levitical cities of one hundred and ten thousand acres, instead of near fifty-three thousand in the former calculation; this will not amount to a tenth of the remainder of one million two hundred thousand acres, after the division of ten millions, and is not one in a hundred to eleven millions two hundred and sixty-four thousand, the very longest contents of the whole land." See his Civ. Gov. of the Hebrews, p. 110. But respecting the subject, we refer to Joshua 20.

REFLECTIONS.—As the Levites would need an abode when they came into the land, God assigns them forty-eight cities, with their suburbs, for their cattle in the several tribes. They needed not arable land, as the tithes were their portion, and the care of the soil would have diverted them from the care of men's souls. For mutual edification, they dwell together; for general usefulness their cities are dispersed, each tribe; according to its extent, furnishing them out of their lot with a suitable abode. Note; (1.) To provide a gospel ministry should be the great concern of every people. (2.) They who are engaged in the ministry should, as much as possible, divest themselves of every worldly care. (3.) They who minister to us in spirituals have a right to reap our worldly things.