What Does Numbers 35:4 Mean in the King James?
And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
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
The wall is not the edge of the Levites’ dwelling: their allotted life reaches beyond it in a measured ring.
THE MEANING
The Levites’ assigned ground reaches beyond the city wall, with a defined measure all around. What lies outside the enclosure is still part of the community’s provision for them. The verse holds the open margin within the order that sustains life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The city wall marks the absolute edge of belonging and provision.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשׁ
migrash
GROWS FROM
גרש
Drive out or send away; the related noun means open land around a city.
The word translated “suburbs” is מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), open land assigned around a city, linked to גָּרַשׁ (garash), “drive out, send away.” The shared root makes the boundary visible: what lies beyond a wall can be expulsion, but here it is measured ground deliberately given as dwelling.
ALSO GROWS
drive out: Expel or send beyond a boundary.
The same root describes being pushed outside; here the land beyond the wall is assigned and provided for.
put away: Send away, as in a wife put away from her husband.
This branch carries the root’s sense of separation, making the verse’s deliberate giving of the outer ground stand out.
THE PATTERN
A place of life is not sealed at its boundary; it is given room to grow.
And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.THE THREAD
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.“Drove out” shares the root גָּרַשׁ (garash), “drive out, send away,” linked to the word for the open land around the city. Beyond a boundary can mean exclusion in one verse and allotted dwelling in the other; the root makes that contrast visible.
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