Numbers 35 · a question people ask
Were the pasture lands 1,000 cubits or 2,000 cubits?
The two verses give two numbers. The pasture lands "shall be from the wall of the city and outward one thousand cubits around it" (35:4). Then: "You shall measure outside of the city for the east side two thousand cubits, and for the south side two thousand cubits, and for the west side two thousand cubits, and for the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle" (35:5). The chapter doesn't say how the two fit together, and Joshua 21 gives no measures. Every reading agrees on what the verses say the land was for: "their livestock, and… their possessions, and… all their animals" (35:3).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
One piece of land, measured two ways
Those who hold this view read 35:4 as the distance outward from the wall on every side, and 35:5 as the length of each side of the land, measured with "the city being in the middle". On this reading the two numbers describe the same pasture land, one measured outward from the wall and the other along each side.
Numbers 35:4-5
Two measures for two areas
Those who hold this view note that 35:4 measures "from the wall of the city and outward" while 35:5 measures "outside of the city" on each of the four sides, and read them as two areas: the pasture lands close to the wall (35:4), and a wider measure of two thousand cubits on each side (35:5). On this reading the verses give the land around a Levite city in two parts.
Numbers 35:4-5
The verses
“They shall have the cities to dwell in. Their pasture lands shall be for their livestock, and for their possessions, and for all their animals. “The pasture lands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward one thousand cubits around it. You shall measure outside of the city for the east side two thousand cubits, and for the south side two thousand cubits, and for the west side two thousand cubits, and for the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle. This shall be the pasture lands of their cities.”