What Does Joshua 21:24 Mean in the King James?

Aijalon with her suburbs, Gath-rimmon with her suburbs; four cities.

Joshua 21:24 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

Even these city names hold a landscape, ⁨איילון⁩ (Ayyalon, “deer place”) and ⁨גַּת־רִמּוֹן⁩ (Gath-rimmon, “pomegranate winepress”), and each is counted with open ground around it.

THE MEANING

Aijalon and Gath-rimmon are named alongside their surrounding open ground, closing a four-city allotment. The place is held as more than a built center: room around the dwelling belongs to its provision.

THE ROOT

מִגְרָשׁ

migrash

GROWS FROM

גרש

garash

Drive out, expel; the related noun names open land around a city.

“suburbs” in this verse is migrash. The same consonants hold the force of expelling and a word for open ground beside a town. Here that surrounding space is counted with the settlement, not left as an unnamed edge.

ALSO GROWS

garash: Drive out, expel.

גָּרַשׁ

This verb carries the root’s force and makes the open space around the city part of the word’s wider field of meaning.

migrash: Open land or pasture around a city.

מִגְרָשׁ

This is the word behind “suburbs”: the allotment includes usable ground around each settlement.

THE PATTERN

An inhabited center is named together with the space that sustains life around it.

And the cities shall they have to dwell in; and the suburbs of them shall be for their cattle, and for their goods, and for all their beasts.

Numbers 35:3 · KJVThe surrounding land is part of what makes the cities livable, providing room for cattle, goods, and other animals.

The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.

Psalm 104:18 · KJVThe hills and rocks are named as shelter alongside the creatures who dwell among them.

Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Matthew 13:32 · KJVThe grown tree becomes more than a center of growth: its branches provide space where other life can lodge.

THE THREAD

Command the children of Israel, that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in; and ye shall give also unto the Levites suburbs for the cities round about them.

Numbers 35:2 · KJV

The same Hebrew word, ⁨מִגְרָשׁ⁩ (migrash), names the open land around the towns. Numbers makes clear that this surrounding space belongs to the allotment, so the cities here are counted with the ground around them.

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