What Does Joshua 21:19 Mean?
All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their pastures.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs.THE KEY
The priests’ “suburbs” are open ground, so the verse counts the space around a place as part of its provision.
THE MEANING
A life given to service still requires a place to dwell and open ground around it. The verse holds the dwelling and its surrounding margin together, showing provision as more than an address.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That a life of service should have only a place to sleep, with no surrounding space counted as part of its provision.
THE ROOT
מִגְרְשֵׁיהֶן
migresheihen
GROWS FROM
גרש
Drive out, expel, send away.
“pastures” in this verse is migresheihen. The Hebrew word for “suburbs,” migresheihen, is a form of מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), open common land around a town, sharing the consonants of גָּרַשׁ (garash), “drive out.” The verse includes both the inhabited city and the open land around it, so provision reaches beyond the walls.
ALSO GROWS
garash: Drive out, expel, send away.
גָּרַשׁ
This verb carries the action associated with the root behind “suburbs.”
migrash: Open common land around a town; suburbs.
מִגְרָשׁ
This noun names the surrounding land counted alongside the cities in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Provision for sacred service includes a place to dwell and the material ground that sustains it.
Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.But the field of the pasturelands of their cities shall not be sold, for it is their holding of the ages.So also the Lord has arranged that those who proclaim the good news should live from the good news.THE THREAD
Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.“Suburbs” here and in Joshua render מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), the open common land around a town. Numbers names both parts of the provision; Joshua gives the count of the cities assigned to Aaron’s descendants.
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