What Does Joshua 21:5 Mean?
And the rest of the children of Kohath received by stone out of the family of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh, ten 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
And the rest of the children of Kohath had by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, and out of the tribe of Dan, and out of the half tribe of Manasseh, ten cities.THE KEY
Being named as the remainder does not mean being left without a place: the remainder receives ten cities.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a place for what remains: the Kohathite families receive ten cities from Ephraim, Dan, and half-Manasseh. What remains is named, counted, and given actual dwellings within a larger inheritance. The lot shows each place as a portion within a shared distribution.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what comes after an earlier allocation is negligible: these remaining families are still counted and given ten cities.
THE ROOT
מַטֵּה
matteh
GROWS FROM
נטה
To stretch out, extend, bend, or incline.
English makes tribe sound like an abstract group; Hebrew matteh can also mean a staff or rod, from the root for extending. Here, cities come from several named lineages: Ephraim (אֶפְרַיִם, Efrayim, fruitful), Dan (דָּן, Dan, judge), and Manasseh (מְנַשֶּׁה, Menasheh, causing to forget).
ALSO GROWS
natah: To stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
This root gives the tribal word an image of extension, like a line branching from a source.
matteh: Staff or rod; also tribe.
מַטֵּה
Numbers 17:2 uses this same word for a household’s rod, revealing the concrete image carried by the word translated tribe.
THE PATTERN
Shared inheritance becomes concrete provision through portions distributed across a community.
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.And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to settle in, with their pastures for our cattle.and set them down at the feet of the sent ones, and it was given out to each as anyone had need.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, and take from them a staff for each house of their fathers, from all their princes according to the house of their fathers, twelve staffs. Write every man's name upon his staff.The Hebrew word for tribe, matteh (מַטֵּה, staff or rod), is the same word used here for each household’s rod. The shared word links the cities apportioned from tribal inheritances to named branches of a larger family.
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