The Book Of Joshua. Day 51, Towns For The Levites, Part One

Now that Israel has possession of the promised land, in yesterday's study we saw the people obeying the Lord's instructions to set aside cities of refuge throughout the land. In Chapter 21 they will assign towns for the Levites who were not given allotments in the land but who are to make their primary living from serving at the tabernacle. They will be given towns throughout Israel and the pastureland surrounding those towns.

"Now the family heads of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the other tribal families of Israel at Shiloh in Canaan and said to them, 'The Lord commanded through Moses that you give us towns to live in, with pasturelands for our livestock.'" (Joshua 21:1-2) The other tribes have already been given their allotments by drawing lots for them at the entrance to the tent of meeting (the tabernacle) at Shiloh. The same method will be used to parcel out towns and their pasturelands to the Levites.

"So, as the Lord had commanded, the Israelites gave the Levites the following towns and pasturelands out of their own inheritance:" (Joshua 21:3) Before continuing on we want to stop and take note that the towns given to the Levites were scattered throughout the territories of all the other tribes of Israel. This fulfills the prophecy made by Jacob concerning the descendants of his son Levi. Jacob said they would be scattered and dispersed in Israel. (Genesis 49:7b) 

"The first lot came out for the Kohathites, according to their clans. The Levites who were descendants of Aaron the priest were allotted thirteen towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin. The rest of Kohath's descendants were allotted ten towns from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan and half of Manasseh." (Joshua 21:4-5) Earlier in the Old Testament we learned that Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. (Genesis 46:11) The first lot comes out for the family line of Kohath, which was the family line to which the late high priest Aaron belonged. 

"The descendants of Gershon were allotted thirteen towns from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan." (Joshua 21:6) Gershon was Levi's eldest son but the first lot came out for the descendants of his second-born son, Kohath. This may have been by human design; for example, Joshua and the leadership team of Israel may have decided to draw lots for the family line of Kohath first, perhaps because it was the line to which Israel's high priests belonged. Or, if they assigned towns by drawing two lots (drawing a name from one jar and drawing city names from a second jar), the Lord must have wanted the priestly clan to receive its towns first. 

"The descendants of Merari, according to their clans, received twelve towns from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Zebulun." (Joshua 21:7) The descendants of Levi's youngest son, Merari, receive their allotted towns last.

"So the Israelites allotted to the Levites these towns and their pasturelands, as the Lord commanded through Moses." (Joshua 21:8) I'm inserting a map below so we can see where these towns were situated.

The remainder of Chapter 21 will go into detail about these cities and we will begin looking at them in tomorrow's study. We'll conclude today by thinking about how the Lord distributed the Levites throughout the land so their godly influence could be distributed throughout the land. No matter which tribe a person belonged to, they lived fairly close to a city of the Levites. This meant they were always near to a priest or to someone who fulfilled some other job connected with the tabernacle. 

In our own day there are believers scattered all over the world. In my background study I found that Christianity, out of all the major religions, has a greater presence on every continent than any other religion. Perhaps this is one of the things Jesus meant when He said to those who had placed their faith in Him, "You are the light of the world." (Matthew 5:14a) On every continent there are people who are qualified and willing to explain the gospel message to anyone who wants to hear it. There are "lights" scattered all over the earth in the same manner as there were Levites scattered all over Israel. People need access to the word of God and the Lord ensured that in ancient Israel the people had easy access to those who could explain the word of God to them and advise them in godly living. If He had given the Levites their own separate territory then they would have been living apart from the rest of the population. They would have seemed unapproachable and might have even been inaccessible to those who lived a far distance from them. But the Lord placed the Levites all over the map of Israel so they could light the way to Him. In this same manner, He has placed believers all over the world today so they can light people's way to Him. This includes you and me! We have been appointed as lights in a dark world and we have been commissioned to share the gospel message wherever we live and wherever we travel. (Mark 16:15)