What Does Numbers 35:4 Mean?
And the pasturelands of the cities, which you shall give the Levites, shall reach from the city wall outward a thousand forearms all around.
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 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 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.
“pasturelands” in this verse is migrash. 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 pulled up from there, and dug another well, and over that they did not strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, the wide places, and he said, For now the LORD has widened a place for us, and we shall bear fruit in the land.Widen the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwellings stretch out. Do not hold back; lengthen your cords, and grip your pegs.The thief comes only to steal, and to slaughter, and to make perish. I came that they might have life, and have it overflowing.THE THREAD
So he drove out the man, and he pitched the cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flaming sword that turned every way would guard 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.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us