And ye shall measure from without the city - two thousand cubits, etc. - Commentators have been much puzzled with the accounts in these two verses. In Num 35:4 the measure is said to be 1,000 cubits from the wall; in Num 35:5 the measure is said to be 2,000 from without the city. It is likely these two measures mean the same thing; at least so it was understood by the Septuagint and Coptic, who have δισχιλιους πηχεις, 2,000 cubits, in the fourth, as well as in the fifth verse; but this reading of the Septuagint and Coptic is not acknowledged by any other of the ancient versions, nor by any of the MSS. collated by Kennicott and De Rossi. We must seek therefore for some other method of reconciling this apparently contradictory account. Sundry modes have been proposed by commentators, which appear to me, in general, to require full as much explanation as the text itself. Maimonides is the only one intelligible on the subject. "The suburbs," says he, "of the cities are expressed in the law to be 3,000 cubits on every side from the wall of the city and outwards. The first thousand cubits are the suburbs, and the 2,000, which they measured without the suburbs, were for fields and vineyards." The whole, therefore, of the city, suburbs, fields, and vineyards, may be represented by the diagram.

And the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel,.... What shall fall by lot for their inheritance, and they shall be possessed of; and though they are, shall not refuse, nor grudge to give them, according to the direction of God, whose the land is, they holding it under him:

from them that have many ye shall give many, but from them that have few ye shall give few; which rule was observed; for out of Judah, whose lot was large, and out of Simeon, whose inheritance was within that of Judah, because it was so large, nine cities were given, whereas out of the other tribes only four cities out of each were given, and out of one of them but three, see Jos 21:1,

everyone shall give of his cities unto the Levites, according to his inheritance which he inheriteth; and the Levites, being thus dispersed among the several tribes, were of great advantage to them, to instruct them in the knowledge of divine things; so that though hereby Jacob's curse on this tribe had its fulfilment, that it should be divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel, yet that became a blessing to the rest of the tribes; see Gen 49:7.

the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel--The burden of furnishing those places for the residence and support of the Levitical order was to fall in equitable proportions upon the different tribes (see Num 33:54; Jos 20:7).