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Context No. 1424 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 6:61-65: in context

61To the rest of the sons of Kohath were given by lot, out of the family of the tribe, out of the half-tribe, the half of Manasseh, ten cities. 62To the sons of Gershom, according to their families, out of the tribe of Issachar, and out of the tribe of Asher, and out of the tribe of Naphtali, and out of the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen cities. 63To the sons of Merari were given by lot, according to their families, out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities. 64The children of Israel gave to the Levites the cities with their pasture lands. 65They gave by lot out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, and out of the tribe of the children of Benjamin, these cities which are mentioned by name.

This passage records how the Levites were given their cities. Unlike the other tribes, the Levites received no single block of territory of their own; instead they were assigned cities scattered throughout all the tribes, so many out of Kohath, so many out of Gershom, so many out of Merari, drawn from Manasseh, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Reuben, Gad, Zebulun, Judah, Simeon, Benjamin. God's ministers were distributed among the whole nation rather than gathered into one place.

The arrangement is worth noticing. The Levites, the tribe set apart for God's service, were deliberately not given a territory of their own. Instead they were scattered, their cities spread among all the other tribes, so that there was no corner of Israel without them, no region where God's servants were not present among the people. The tribe devoted to God was distributed through the whole nation, salt spread through the entire dish rather than heaped in one place. There is a pattern in that for how God places his servants. They are not meant to be gathered into a holy enclave, walled off among their own kind, but scattered among the people, present in every part of the community, so that the whole of it has God's servants living in its midst. And there is a personal word in it too, for those who feel scattered, placed among others far from any spiritual home of their own, without a territory to call theirs. The Levites had no land of their own; the LORD himself was their inheritance, and their calling was precisely to be present among the tribes rather than settled in a place apart. To be scattered among others, without a comfortable enclave, is not a misfortune but often the very shape of the calling, to be God's presence in the midst of the people, wherever we are placed. What we lack in a territory of our own, we may be given in a portion better than land: the LORD himself.

Do I wish for a comfortable enclave of my own kind, or can I accept, like the Levites, that I may be scattered among others as God's presence in their midst, with no territory to call mine but the LORD himself as my inheritance?

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