Well, I'm going to be preaching on a lot more verses than I'll start by reading, but Joshua chapter 21, beginning at verse 4, hear God's Word. Now the Lot came out for the families of the Kohathites, and the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by Lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin. The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by Lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan, from the half-tribe of Manasseh. And the children of Gershon had 13 cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. The children of Merari, according to their families, had 12 cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common lands by lot to the Levites, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. Amen. Father, as we dig into this scripture, I pray that you would guide my lips and that you would help each one of us to grow up into you in every area that you desire us to grow in. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Last week we began our pilgrimage through Joshua. We got to chapter 21, a passage, by the way, that preachers studiously avoid preaching on. If you take a look at sermons on Joshua, they tend to finish a few chapters before this. But I want to, I can understand why. I mean, long listing of cities, it's really hard to put into sermonic form, but I think you're going to see there is a lot of neat stuff in this chapter that we're going to try to dig into. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a little bit of a review of what we said last week, then a broad overview of the chapter as a whole, and then I'm going to dive down into some of the details. Now last week we saw that the Levites were the teaching elders of the Mosaic period. And since the Old Testament prophesied that God was, in the New Covenant, going to be taking Levites from among the Gentiles, well, that means there has to be some similarity between the Levites in the Old Testament and pastors in the New Testament. For example, Isaiah 66, 21 says of Gentiles in our age, And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites, or as the Targum renders it, Levitical priests. There's no and in the Hebrew, and so Young's literal has priests, comma, Levites, and it refers to the teaching Levites, not to the Aaronic priests who engaged in the sacrifices, all of which pointed to Christ, and the other priests were not allowed to sacrifice. It was just the teaching priests that are the main focus. Now, I can't be a literal Levite, because I'm not a Jew, right? But the passage I just read calls me a Levite. Isaiah 66, 21 compares Gary and me and Michael Elliot and Rodney Swatt, anybody else that's a preacher today calls them Levitical priests, basically. It indicates that they function in some similar capacity, and that capacity really is teaching, pastoring in the local synagogues, performing the sacraments. 2 Chronicles 15.3 says, for a long time Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, that's the kind we're talking about, and without law. And so last week we saw that the Levites and the ruling elders formed an identical church structure in the Old Testament synagogues to what was laid out in the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament calls the church the synagogue. We saw that. Jewish synagogue system was Presbyterian structure of government. And so last week I gave an introduction to this chapter that showed that there have been teaching pastors and there have been elders from Genesis through Revelation, okay, and I examined eight different models of church government that godly people have held to in the past, and we saw that only Presbyterianism holds to every detail that's outlined in the Old and in the New Testaments. God was seeking to make sure that every community in Israel had one-on-one shepherding ministry from the ruling elders, as well as a preacher who would work jointly together with those ruling elders. But we also saw that Simeon and Levi had been cursed by God in Genesis chapter 49 because of their anger and their cruelty. And because of that curse, they were scattered throughout Israel. But even though both of these brothers and their descendants were cursed, What we find in this chapter is that God turned the curse against Levi into a blessing, whereas the curse against Simeon was not removed. So what's the difference? I want to comment a little bit on that difference. Why is Levi given such blessings in this chapter? Well, the difference was that the Levites repented. They rejected the sins of their ancestors. They cut those sins off. They devoted themselves entirely to the Lord and took a clear-cut stand for Him. And you can see an example of that in Exodus chapter 32. What had happened is that Israel was kind of apostatizing. They had made a golden calf, and they were worshiping this calf. And Moses came down from the mountain and was really upset with them. And God said that He was about to destroy the entire nation and raise up another nation from Moses. And Moses, as a type of Christ, interceded on their behalf. And Moses also tried to make a division among the people to see who was willing to take a stand for the Lord. And he said, who will stand with me and execute these idolaters? And the entire tribe of Levi stood with him, and they went through the camp. Not everybody was an idolater apparently, but went through the camp and executed 3,000 idolaters in one day. The point is, the tribe of Levi proved to be super faithful, and they were consecrated at that time to be pastors. They took over the pastoral role that the firstborn had had prior to that. The firstborn was kind of the pastor over the clan. So even though the scattering of Levites among Israel couldn't be removed, God turned the scattering into an incredible blessing for them, and in turn it became a blessing for Israel. God actually produced some of the greatest leaders in Israel out of the tribe of Levi. People like Moses and Aaron and Phinehas and Eli and Ezra. Even John the Baptist came from the tribe of Levi. Now this should be an encouragement to you and me. Sure, we've all messed up in the past. We've had our regrets from the past. I sure have. Things that I am not proud of. But if we admit the sins of our past, we repent of those, we ask God to turn that pain into something beautiful, He will. He will. That's the encouragement that I get. And sure, there are still going to be scars that are left. I mean, Levi had scars. They never did get any land. Remember, they were scattered. They didn't get any tribal allotment. And in the same way, we might not get everything that we could have gotten. Had we not engaged in those sins in the past, there's always consequences, but God can still open up new doors of ministry opportunity in our lives, and He can produce something beautiful out of our lives. But this turning of the curse into a blessing can only happen when there is repentance and a complete embracing of God's plan for our lives. Now let's contrast that with Simeon. Apparently Simeon and his ancestors, wait a minute, Simeon and his descendants, I should say, not ancestors, didn't repent. Exodus shows that Simeon did not take a stand for the Lord. Now why? We don't know for sure. Maybe it was peer pressure. Maybe they didn't want, you know, negative feedback. They didn't want to offend their parents or their family. Perhaps it was pride, there may have been some other reason, but whatever the reason was that kept them from their repentance, they continued the course of their ancestors for many generations. And as a result, they stood on the sidelines and they never amounted to anything. until Revelation 7 verse 7 when God in His sovereignty took 12,000 Levites by His sovereign grace and He turned them into people who were devoted to the Lord just like the Levites had been. And at that point, He turned the Simeonites into something beautiful by His grace. In any case, I want to point out that there are Christians who do the same thing as Simeon did at the time of Moses. They know they should not be continuing the sinful patterns that their parents and their grandparents have engaged in, but they decide somehow it's just not worth it to be different. Perhaps it's not worth the effort or they don't want to stand out as a sore thumb. They try to blend in. They don't want to take a radical stand for the Lord. If that is you, eventually your family is going to disappear into nothingness just like the Simeonites did. Yes, you're going to go to heaven, you're going to go to heaven, but your life is not going to count for that much down here below. So that's the way it is in the Christian life. Those who admit that they have messed up in the past, they're the ones many times that God uses the most. He loves to humble the proud, but he loves to exalt the humble. So be like Levi, don't be like Simeon. But let me briefly compare and contrast the teaching elders and the ruling elders. The Levites became the teachers, theologians, counselors, judges, the preachers in the new society, and they became indispensable parts of the kingdom. The elders that are mentioned in chapter 20, verse 4, and actually they're mentioned earlier as well, chapter 7, verse 6, chapter 8, verse 33, there's other references to them. They were equivalent to the modern ruling elders who also helped to shepherd the sheep within the church of Jesus Christ. And what I discovered as I was studying the commentaries this past week is that the organization of the elders that God set up in Exodus chapter 18 into four levels of government, that's the local session, presbytery, the synod, and the general assembly, And that's exactly the same four levels of government that the preachers in this chapter were organized into. And hopefully I can explain that fairly clearly. Now, I've already mentioned that the Levites were the preachers of the Bible. They were the skilled theologians. Here's how one commentary worded it. The priests and Levites were to teach the Word to all, and the elders were to administer communities by that Word. In other words, he's saying that the ruling elders, the teaching elders, they shepherded the church of Jesus Christ jointly. And this chapter gives us hints of the same Presbyterian structure. So let me first of all go through verses 4 through 42. I'm going to give you a bird's eye view, and then we're going to dive down into the details. In verses 4-8 we have a summary statement of the four houses of Levi binding the twelve tribes of Israel together. And let me read those verses again and then comment on them. Verses 4-5 deal with the first two houses that came from the one line of Kohath. Verse 4 deals with the first house the Kohathites who were the children of Aaron So these are the ones who were engaged in the sacrifices and they pointed forward to Jesus Their office did not continue after Jesus verse 4 now the lot came out and for the families of the Kohathites, and the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin." Now these Aaronic priests were the ones who would perform the sacrifices in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. And even though the temple was not yet constructed, God sovereignly arranged this distribution so that these priests who were going to be doing the sacrifices would be very close within walking distance of that future temple. This was because they were going to take turns leaving their homes and ministering in cycles in the temple. But they all had to be fairly close to the temple. Then verse 5 deals with the rest of the Kohathites. They were a bit further away. It says, the rest of the children of Coath had 10 cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan, and from the half tribe of Manasseh. Now, these Coathites were previously responsible for taking down and then resetting up the tabernacle when they would be traveling all over the wilderness. Well, they're no longer going to be traveling, so these guys are not needed for that any longer. So from this point on, their primary function is going to be a preaching ministry in the synagogues near to where they lived. They'd been teaching before in addition to their jobs, but now this was going to be almost their exclusive vocation. Verse 6 deals with the house of Gershon. And the children of Gershon had 13 cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. Now, the Gershonites were previously responsible for putting up curtains and the other coverings for the tabernacle, and that had to be repeatedly done when they were traveling. That's no longer needed. So again, what remained was their preaching ministry. Verse 7 deals with the house of Merari. The children of Merari, according to their families, had 12 cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. And then verse 8 summarizes it all by saying, and the children of Israel gave these cities with their common lands by lot to the Levites as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. So why do I say that all of these Levites that we've listed bound Israel together? Well, God made sure that these Levites were thoroughly mixed among the people, and this was true even within the cities that they were given. Commentators point out it wasn't just Levites who lived in these Levitical cities. God ensured that the Levites were not only spread out, but other Israelites lived within the Levitical cities to be able to be positively influenced by their ministry. Indeed, way back in Leviticus 25, God expected others to be in each of these Levitical cities, and He expected at least some of the Levites to rent out their land and to live in other areas of Israel. Let me read you just a couple verses from Leviticus 25. Nevertheless, the cities of the Levites and the houses in the cities of their possession the Levites may redeem at any time. And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall be released in the Jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of the common land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession. Now, this provision expected that for convenience sake, many Levites would lease out their land to non-Levites for anywhere up to 49 years, after which time it would resort to the family of the Levites. Often it was the next generation. And there are other ways in which the law of God made for provision, I'm not going to get into it, for non-Levites to live in the Levitical cities close to the Levites, and for the Levites to move to new areas where they would pastor new synagogues. But God did not want them leasing their land out to others for more than 49 years because he wanted to make sure that the Levites, who didn't have any tribal boundaries or borders, would at least have houses and land that could provide security, income, and inheritance for them. I think it actually provided, if there was a bad decision that a Levite parent made, you know, selling land, well, it wouldn't impoverish the next generation. Now let's dig into this a little bit more. One commentary explains it this way. From the instruction given in Leviticus 25, 32 through 34, as well as the record of biblical history, it is evident that these cities were not exclusively inhabited by the Levites. In view of the purpose of the distribution of the Levites, this would hardly be God's plan. God intended the Levites to be in the midst of Israel and not to be isolated from the people whom they were to instruct and guide. Hence, the cities of the Levites were also inhabited by Israelites from other tribes. Gibeah of Benjamin, here given to the Levites in Joshua 21.17, was also peopled by the Benjamites, as appears from the history of the Levite whose wife was so horribly abused by them, Judges 19. Saul dwelt there also. David and his court spent years at Hebron, another city of the Levites. The Levites probably were merely given the right to as many houses as they needed for living quarters in these cities. If they should sell, which they seemingly had a right to do, Leviticus 25, 32 through 34, they would perpetually have the right to redeem the property. The rest of the dwellings were occupied by the members of the tribe to which the country belonged. Outside the city was the pasture land for their cattle, extending up to 2,000 cubits beyond the city limits. This land was theirs for use, but not for selling. It was permanently considered the Lord's property. And so the point is, God knew that Levites as pastors would both need land and the flexibility to be able to move to wherever they needed to teach the people in the synagogues. Now let me comment in more detail on the four concentric circles of distribution. I'm going to be repeating myself because God repeats Himself in this chapter, okay? And I can't think of a better way of explaining this than to quote from a commentary at length. Francis Nichols says, it has been suggested that each of the four divisions of the House of Levi became a bond to cement three of the twelve tribes together. In the case of the Gershonites, the two sides of Jordan are bound together, two on the west of Jordan united to one on the east. The Merorites were used to connect two tribes on the east of the Jordan with one tribe on the west, and the southeast of the Israelitish territory with the north. Thus they were all knit together that they might grow up together in God. The Levites were divided in Israel, but in their division they became a bond of union, bringing the tribes of Israel together and joining all of them to their God. When not engaged in performing the religious duties which were apportioned among them, the Levites were the teachers of the young, the readers, transcribers, and expounders of the law, the analysts and chroniclers who preserved the memory of great events and distinguished personages. They were to bring religion into everyday life mutually helping one another and their neighbors to realize the unseen and to attain God's standards. And I think most of the commentaries that I read through agree with Nichols' analysis there. God wanted pastors scattered throughout Israel, but he also wanted them to have an inheritance that could be passed on from generation to generation. And then in the rest of the chapter, God backs up and he gives more details. And as I said, I've got to repeat myself. But I won't repeat myself too much. God, first of all, allocates cities for the Levites who would minister as priests in His palace temple. Verses 9-19 deal with the priestly Kohathites' inheritance once again. Let me just read through it. beginning at verse 9. So they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah, and from the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are designated by name, which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were the children of Levi, for the lot was theirs first. And they gave them Kerjoth Arba. Arba was the father of Anak. which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah, with the common land surrounding it, but the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as his possession. Thus to the children of Aaron, the priests, they gave Hebron with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Libnah with its common land, Jatir with its common land, Eshdomoah with its common land, Holon with its common land, Debir with its common land, Ayin with its common land, Juta with its common land, and Beshemesh with its common land, nine cities from these two tribes, and from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common land, Giba with its common land, Anathoth with its common land, and Olmon with its common land, four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron the priest were 13 cities with their common lands. And again you're going to see that they were very tightly clustered together and very, very close to where the location of the future temple would be. And it makes sense because these Aaronic Priests would need to travel to the temple, and they were responsible for the sacrificial system. Now, did they also teach in the temple? Absolutely. There were actually several synagogues in the temple, and there were synagogues scattered all throughout the city of Jerusalem. So they were involved in a teaching ministry as well, but most of their job was helping the Israelites with their temple rituals. But this also shows that the casting of lots was not blind chance. God was directing its every toss. Now, if this had just been random, you would have found these priests scattered into every area of Israel. But there was an arrangement and order that only God's providence could have arranged and anticipated. Next comes the non-priestly Kohathites who had responsibility for the Ark and its sacred furniture. And even though they wouldn't have nearly as much work to do as the Aaronic priests, they would still have special functions that would require them to be a little bit nearer to the temple. So they're the next ring of cities, verse 20. And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the children of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from the tribe of Ephraim. For they gave them Shechem with its common land, and the mountains of Ephraim, a city of refuge for the slayer, Gezer with its common land, Kibzaim with its common land, and Bethhoron with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Dan, Eltekha with its common land, Gibethon with its common land, Ejilon with its common land, Gathrimon with its common land, four cities. And from the half tribe of Manasseh, Tanak with its common land, and Gathrimon with its common land, two cities. All the ten cities with their common lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kowath. Now I'll comment on the city of refuge in a bit, but let's go through each of the rings. Gershonite's inheritance given in verses 27 through 33. Also to the children of Gershon of the families of the Levites from the other half-tribe of Manasseh that gave Golan in Bashan with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer. and Be-Eshterah with its common land, two cities, and from the tribe of Issachar, Kishion with its common land, Dabaroth with its common land, Jarmuth with its common land, and then Ganim with its common land, four cities, and from the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its common land, Abdan with its common land, Helkoth with its common land, and Rehob with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedish in Galilee with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Hamoth Dor with its common land, and Kartan with its common land, three cities. All the cities of the Gershonites, according to their families, were 13 cities with their common lands. Then comes the inheritance of the Merorites, verses 34 through 40. and to the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, from the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its common land, Karta with its common land, Dimna with its common land, Nahalal with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common land, Jehaz with its common land, Kedemoth with its common land, and Mephahoth with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Mahanaim with its common land, Heshbon with its common land, and Jazer with its common land, four cities in all. So all the cities for the children of Merari, according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites, were by their lot twelve cities. Now, what application can we make just from this scattering of the Levites all over Israel? Well, David Guzik points out that it models to modern ministers that they need to go out to where the people are rather than going off into a monastery and expecting people to come visit them there or visit them in their study, right? He also said that it illustrated, quote, Christians need to be sprinkled throughout the whole world, influencing people for Jesus Christ. Why does he say that? Every believer is a priest in a sense as well, so he made that extra application. But before we dig deeper into the specifics of the text, let me read the last two verses of this section. First, verse 41. All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were 48 cities with their common lands. And what a blessing these 48 cities were. We saw last week that they were the presbytery headquarters representing 48 presbyteries in the Church of Israel, but there was more. E. John Hamlin points out another fact about these 48 centers. They were also the decentralized theological training centers for the future generations of Levites, with the best teachers actually teaching additional teachers as well. He said this, the Levitical cities might be called Torah centers, that is, places where God's teaching would be studied, interpreted, practiced, and taught. The Levites would put this teaching in the mouths, hearts, and action of the people, Deuteronomy 30, 14, Joshua 1, 7 through 8. Such instruction by story and commandments was the sovereign remedy for the rebellious and stubborn hearts of God's people, Deuteronomy 31, verse 27. Now when I started digging into this, I just found this absolutely fascinating because these commentators pointed out not only are these 48 centers, each presbytery had centers for training and raising up new generations of pastors. And so instead of one centralized seminary that Satan could very easily take over, There's 48 decentralized seminaries. And over the course of Israel's history, some of these Torah centers became compromised, just like modern seminaries have become liberalized, right? And so that meant that conservative Levites had to travel out of their district to another Torah teaching center in order to get their seminary training. And it was a blessing that they were there. Apparently there's nothing new under the sun. But just because seminaries can go bad does not mean we should do away with seminaries, right? And I believe that this illustrates that seminaries should be church-run rather than independently run. And so there were full-time Torah teaching centers at these 48 cities. But there were also occasional presbytery meetings where the ruling elders and the teaching elders would meet together. Then verse 42 reiterates the presence of common lands around each of the cities. Every one of these cities had its common land surrounding it. Thus were all these cities. Now, the common lands are mentioned 32 times in this chapter, which indicates to me it must be pretty significant to the Lord, having these common lands. Numbers 35.4 specifies that the common lands extended 1,000 cubits, and I read earlier 2,000, so I better double-check that, and you better double-check too, because I just noticed in my notes a little contradiction here. 1,000 cubits would be about 1,500 feet, 2,000 would be 3,000 feet. And so I'll have to figure out which of those two figures is right here. But this was the place where extra gardens could be grown and where certain animals could graze. But Earl Rodmacher clarifies the evidence saying this. This does not mean that the priests and Levites supported themselves by farming, for the law is clear that they were to live on the tithes and offerings of the other tribes, Numbers 18, 21 through 32. The produce they received from the common land was a bonus, and it was not just a bonus blessing of bringing in produce for their family. God designed this green belt for beauty and for the refreshment of the entire city, as well as people who would be traveling to those cities. Being a pastor is a particularly stressful occupation, and there is something about green space that is relaxing and refreshing. Huffman and Ogilvie's commentary says this, some scholars have made interesting note that over 3,000 years later, we are waking up to the necessity to plan in our cities significant areas for trees and grass. Urban intensification must be relieved in places where people can rediscover a contact with the land. Now moving on to the six cities of refuge that are mentioned in this chapter, I found it interesting that each of the six cities of refuge had the beauty of this green space around it as well. So they were not just intended to be fortresses that were ugly, unattractive. They were safe places for people to flee to, yes, for physical safety, but they were also spiritual retreats where they could get immersed in the theological culture of the Levites. One commentator made the application that in much the same way, God calls the modern church to be a safe place for those who are experiencing severe stress. So it's a place of teaching and worship, fellowship, living out of God's Word, however imperfectly. But why were the cities of refuge occupied by Levites? And the first and the most obvious answer is, hey, they were the experts in the law who could help adjudicate the situation of a manslayer, figure out, is this murder or was this manslaughter? Was it an accidental kind of a situation? And Paul made the point that the church should be the first and the best place for any conflicts to be adjudicated. rather than going to pagan courts. After talking about all the things that God had entrusted judgment of the church on, Paul rebukes Corinth for going to secular courts against one another and he says this, I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? 1 Corinthians 6.5. What I didn't realize, though, until I started studying this recently, is that these six cities of refuge were also intended to be the headquarters for the six synods into which the presbyteries were divided. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever. Now, of course, it makes perfect sense that God would make headquarters for the Levites on the same level that God ordered the ruling elders to be divided up into in Exodus 18. In any case, commentators have pointed out that the Levites not only pastored local synagogues, they met to deliberate on issues within 48 presbyteries, occasionally met to deliberate in six synods, and then once a year, or as needed, at the General Assembly, which was at the national level. Well, that's exactly the same breakdown that we see in Exodus 18 for the ruling elders. And in your outline, I've given a graphic that shows that. But there's one city of refuge that was different. Verse 13 says, so to the descendants of Aaron the priest, they gave Hebron a city of refuge for one accused of murder. How can we reconcile this with the fact that earlier God gave Hebron to Caleb and his descendants? Let me read that. Chapter 14, 13-14 says, Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh, and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. Chapter 15, 13 through 14, says something similar. In accordance with the Lord's command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb, son of Jephunneh, a portion of Judah, Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. Arba was the forefather of Anak. From Hebron, Caleb drove out the three Anakites, Sheshai, Ahimon, and Talmai, descendants of Anak. So Caleb claimed Hebron. He drove the giants out of Hebron. He lived in Hebron. And yet our passage says, no, Hebron is a Levitical city. And Caleb got the suburbs and the farmlands around Hebron instead. So what's going on? Is there a contradiction here? Well, no. We know the Bible is the Word of God. There can't be any contradictions in the Word. But what's the explanation? There are three explanations that I have seen that have sought to reconcile these passages. A.W. Pink suggests that the city was way too big for Caleb and his clan to occupy. And if you look at the archaeology of it, it was way too big for their family. And so he says maybe he voluntarily gave the city to the Levites, putting the concerns of the kingdom ahead of his own. We aren't told that that was the case, and I doubt that that was the case, but that's Pink's view. The second explanation is similar. It says that the Levites were in charge of or had jurisdiction over the city, whereas Caleb was in charge of and had jurisdiction over the surrounding towns and farms, and yet both Levites and Calebites dwelt within the city. So on this theory, the division was only dealing with jurisdiction, not with where they lived, and that's definitely possible. After all, there was not a single Levitical city that did not have non-Levites living in it. And so there's no reason why the Levites could not have had jurisdiction over the city, yet still have the Calebites living there. Verse 11 says, so they gave them Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, with its surrounding pasture land in the hill country of Judah. Arba was the forefather of Anak. But the fields and villages around the city, they had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession. So on the second theory, all of the villages and farms beyond the green space were under the jurisdiction of the Calebite clan. But he and his family were also allowed to dwell within the city. And the proponents of this theory point out that this would have taken actually a special provision of jurisdiction, since this would be one of the exceptions to the general rule that the cities normally, well not always, but at least the walled cities, had jurisdiction over the land and the villages connected to the city. His clan alone had sole jurisdiction of those villages and farms. And I tend to lean to this second theory. It makes the most sense to me. There's a third explanation that's been proposed, and that is that the name Hebron applies to all of the villages and farmlands surrounding the city. In other words, Caleb's towns constituted urban sprawl. Now, we aren't told that, but that's what some commentaries have thought. Maybe there's a fourth theory I've not even run across that explains things better. But whichever theory is correct, studying these cities, which ones had jurisdiction over property outside the city, which ones did not, suddenly made me realize that I needed to repent of complaining, as I have done, about Omaha's extending their rules to us who live outside the city. They call it the three-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction. In other words, I'm outside the city, I can't vote for my city representatives, but they can dictate whether or not we have a bed and breakfast, you know, how we incinerate things. and how I manage my property, building code violations, all that kind of stuff. So it's regulation without representation. But wow, after studying these cities, it made me realize that the relationship of cities to the surrounding land is sometimes tricky. And there can be reasons for a city's jurisdiction to sometimes reach beyond the city because of the way those outside areas impact the city. And by the way, not every city in Joshua had the same jurisdiction over surrounding areas. But when there were clear benefits, for example, walled cities that all the surrounding towns could run into when there's invading forces. When there were clear benefits, provided to the villages and farms, there was at least some say-so jurisdiction as well. So I learned something new this past week I hadn't known before. It wasn't really a serious question for me, but it was an interesting thing. Now there's just one more brief point that I want to make. I commented last week that the word lot is used eight times in the chapter, that it refers to God's sovereignty. But as you can see by the other verses that I've referenced in connection with this point, Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not at odds. So even though the Levites asked for the cities, verses 1 and 2, even though the others gave them the cities, verse 3, in other words, they're very, very involved, it's clear from these eight verses that each city was sovereignly distributed by Lot. Okay, God apportioned them. It's just one of many passages that indicate that we can and must do everything in our power that we can do, and the things that God has called us to do, and yet completely trust that God, as a sovereign God, can control every detail while we're doing it. Now let me wrap up with some concluding comments. I believe this chapter illustrates the fact that God was step by step establishing the church and nation to be able to function well in the years to come. It'd be up to Israel whether they utilize these plans very well or not. And if you read through the book of Judges, you'll see sometimes they did, sometimes they did not. But God does have a good plan for civics, and he has a good plan for the church. And when both church and state operate within the limited jurisdictions that God has given to them, the whole nation will prosper. And Lord willing, we'll finish this chapter next week. But let's close in prayer. Father, we thank You for even the somewhat boring sections of Your Word, because they are important for our guidance. You have said that we're to live by every word that proceeds out of Your mouth. So forgive us for those times where we skip over sections because we don't find them that interesting. Help us more and more to find Your Word to be the joy of our life and sweetness to our mouth. May we live by it. May we be transformed by it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.