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Context No. 903 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 21:1-16: in context

1Then the heads of fathers’ houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of fathers’ houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. 2They spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, “The LORD commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their pasture lands for our livestock.” 3The children of Israel gave to the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of the LORD, these cities with their pasture lands. 4The lot came out for the families of the Kohathites. The children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot out of the tribe of Judah, out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin. 5The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half-tribe of Manasseh. 6The children of Gershon had thirteen cities by lot out of the families of the tribe of Issachar, out of the tribe of Asher, out of the tribe of Naphtali, and out of the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. 7The children of Merari according to their families had twelve cities out of the tribe of Reuben, out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun. 8The children of Israel gave these cities with their pasture lands by lot to the Levites, as the LORD commanded by Moses. 9They gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are mentioned by name: 10and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot. 11They gave them Kiriath Arba, named after the father of Anak (also called Hebron), in the hill country of Judah, with its pasture lands around it. 12But they gave the fields of the city and its villages to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession. 13To the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its pasture lands, the city of refuge for the man slayer, Libnah with its pasture lands, 14Jattir with its pasture lands, Eshtemoa with its pasture lands, 15Holon with its pasture lands, Debir with its pasture lands, 16Ain with its pasture lands, Juttah with its pasture lands, and Beth Shemesh with its pasture lands: nine cities out of those two tribes.

The land has been divided among the tribes, and now the Levites come forward. They have no territory of their own, so under the command God gave through Moses, the other tribes give them cities to live in with pasturelands around them, scattered throughout everyone else's inheritance. This chapter lists them, starting with the priests, the sons of Aaron, who receive thirteen cities including Hebron, which is also a city of refuge for someone who has killed accidentally.

It is easy to skim a list of city names, but the arrangement is quietly profound. The tribe set apart for God gets no block of land to call its own. Instead the Levites are spread out, a handful of families in this town and that, salted through all the other tribes. There is a loss in it, no homeland, no borders, dependent on the tithes and goodwill of neighbors, and there is a purpose in it. The people whose job was to teach the law and tend the worship of God were deliberately placed everywhere, so that no tribe was far from someone whose life was given to God. Their inheritance, as Joshua puts it elsewhere, was the LORD himself, not real estate. And notice Hebron among their cities doubles as a refuge, a place a manslayer can flee to safety, so the priestly towns are also mercy towns. The tribe with no land of its own becomes the tribe present in everyone's land, holding the worship and the refuge together.

Am I willing to hold my place among others loosely, as the Levites did, if it means being present for people who need what God has given me to carry?

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