44 Yahweh gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore to their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand.
So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh spoke to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. The land had rest from war.
I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you. But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they be destroyed. He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name to perish from under the sky: there shall no man be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.
Yahweh your God, he will go over before you; he will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them: [and] Joshua, he shall go over before you, as Yahweh has spoken. Yahweh will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land; whom he destroyed. Yahweh will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandment which I have commanded you.
Remember the word which Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, saying, Yahweh your God gives you rest, and will give you this land.
until Yahweh have given your brothers rest, as [he has given] you, and they also have possessed the land which Yahweh your God gives them: then you shall return to the land of your possession, and possess it, which Moses the servant of Yahweh gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.
Now Yahweh your God has given rest to your brothers, as he spoke to them: therefore now turn you, and get you to your tents, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of Yahweh gave you beyond the Jordan.
The children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they owned, according to the commandment of Yahweh by Moses.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joshua 21
Commentary on Joshua 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
It had been often said that the tribe of Levi should have "no inheritance with their brethren,' no particular part of the country assigned them, as the other tribes had, no, not the country about Shiloh, which one might have expected to be appropriated to them as the lands of the church; but, though they were not thus cast into a country by themselves, it appears, by the provision made for them in this chapter, that they were no losers, but the rest of the tribes were very much gainers, by their being dispersed. We have here,
Jos 21:1-8
Here is,
Jos 21:9-42
We have here a particular account of the cities which were given to the children of Levi out of the several tribes, not only to be occupied and inhabited by them, as tenants to the several tribes in which they lay-no, their interest in them was not dependent and precarious, but to be owned and possessed by them as lords and proprietors, and as having the same title to them that the rest of the tribes had to their cities or lands, as appears by the law which preserved the house in the Levites' cities from being alienated any longer than till the year of jubilee, Lev. 25:32, 33. Yet it is probable that the Levites having only the cities and suburbs, while the land about pertained to the tribes in which they lay, those of that tribe, for the convenience of occupying that land, might commonly rent houses of the Levites, as they could spare them in their cities, and so live among them as their tenants. Several things may be observed in this account, besides what was observed in the law concerning it, Num. 35.
Upon the whole, it appears that effectual care was taken that the Levites should live both comfortably and usefully: and those, whether ministers or others, for whom Providence has done well, must look upon themselves as obliged thereby to do good, and, according as their capacity and opportunity are, to serve their generation.
Jos 21:43-45
We have here the conclusion of this whole matter, the foregoing history summed up, and, to make it appear the more bright, compared with the promise of which it was the full accomplishment. God's word and his works mutually illustrate each other. The performance makes the promise appear very true and the promise makes the performance appear very kind.