What Does Joshua 21:37 Mean?
Kedemoth with her pastures, and Mephaath with her pastures; four cities.
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
Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities.THE KEY
A city’s edges are part of the gift: the open land around it is provision, not leftover space.
THE MEANING
You are shown a place as more than its houses: the city includes its assigned open ground around it. Dwelling and surrounding land belong together as one provision for a community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The land beyond the built center is not surplus outside the community’s provision; it belongs to that provision.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
גרש
garash
to drive out, expel, or send away
“suburbs” in this verse is migrasheha. The noun מִגְרָשׁ (migrash, open common land around a town) is traditionally connected to this root. Here it names the land assigned around the city, giving the city an open margin as part of its provision.
ALSO GROWS
garash: to drive out or expel
גָּרַשׁ
This is the root’s basic action, behind the word-family link to the land around the city.
gerushah: a woman put away or divorced
גְּרוּשָׁה
The same root names someone sent away, showing the family’s sense of removal.
migrash: open common land or pastureland around a town
מִגְרָשׁ
This is the noun in the verse; the city’s assigned ground extends beyond its dwellings.
THE PATTERN
Communal service is sustained by concrete provision, including the places and resources that support those who serve.
Guard yourself, that you do not let go of the Levite as long as you live upon the ground.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.Do you not know that those who serve the set-apart things eat from the temple, and those who sit beside the altar share with the altar?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.Numbers spells out what this verse lists: cities for the Levites and open ground around them. The repeated מִגְרָשׁ (migrash, common land around a town) shows that the margin belongs to the allotment itself.
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