March 18, 2025 Bible Study — The Towns and Cities Given to the Levites

Today, I am reading and commenting on Joshua 21-22.

I rarely pay much attention to the lands, cities, and towns which were given to different groups during the Israelites settlement of Canaan.  The reason for that is that, for the most part, I don’t really have any concept of how these places relate to each other, which means that reading it generally carries no meaning to me.  I discovered today that I need to start paying more attention to that sort of thing.  What brought my attention to it was the realization that Hebron was given to the Levites as one of their cities.  What made that noteworthy to me is the fact that King David made it his capital while he was king of Judah before being king of all Israel.  Then a little later it mentions that Shechem was also given to the Levites.  Shechem comes up numerous times in the Old Testament.  The particular case I thought about was when the son of Gideon convinced Shechem to support him as ruler of Israel, then killed almost all of his brothers.  Finally, I noticed Mahanaim as one of the towns given to the Levites.  Mahanaim was where Abner set up Saul’s son as king after Saul’s death.  It is also where King David fled and made his stand when Absalom attempted to usurp his throne.  The fact that these were Levitical cities will provide some insights into understanding those passages where these cities come up again later.  Which once again encourages me in reading the Bible over and over again.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Leave a Reply