351 Then God spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho: 2 "Command the People of Israel to give the Levites as their part of the total inheritance towns to live in. Make sure there is plenty of pasture around the towns. 3 Then they will be well taken care of with towns to live in and pastures for their cattle, flocks, and other livestock. 4 "The pasture surrounding the Levites' towns is to extend 1,500 feet in each direction from the city wall. 5 The outside borders of the pasture are to measure three thousand feet on each of the four sides - east, south, west, and north - with the town at the center. Each city will be supplied with pasture. 6 "Six of these towns that you give the Levites will be asylum-cities to which anyone who accidentally kills another person may flee for asylum. In addition, you will give them forty-two other towns - 7 forty-eight towns in all, together with their pastures. 8 The towns that you give the Levites from the common inheritance of the People of Israel are to be taken in proportion to the size of each tribe - many towns from a tribe that has many, few from a tribe that has few."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Numbers 35:1-8
Commentary on Numbers 35:1-8
(Read Numbers 35:1-8)
The cities of the priests and Levites were not only to accommodate them, but to place them, as religious teachers, in several parts of the land. For though the typical service of the tabernacle or temple was only in one place, the preaching of the word of God, and prayer and praise, were not thus confined. These cities were to be given out of each tribe. Each thus made a grateful acknowledgement to God. Each tribe had the benefit of the Levites dwelling amongst them, to teach them the knowledge of the Lord; thus no parts of the country were left to sit in darkness. The gospel provides that he who is taught in the word, should communicate to him that teaches, in all good things, Galatians 6:6. We are to free God's ministers from distracting cares, and to leave them at leisure for the duties of their station; so that they may be wholly employed therein, and avail themselves of every opportunity, by acts of kindness, to gain the good-will of the people, and to draw their attention.