Numbers 35:4

The pasture lands of the different towns were to measure "from the town wall outwards a thousand cubits round about," i.e., on each of the four sides. "And measure from without the city, the east side 2000 cubits, and the south side 2000 cubits, and the west side 2000 cubits, and the north side 2000 cubits, and the city in the middle," i.e., so that the town stood in the middle of the measured lines, and the space which they occupied was not included in the 2000 cubits. The meaning of these instructions, which have caused great perplexity to commentators, and have latterly been explained by Saalschtz (Mos. R. pp. 100, 101) in a marvellously erroneous manner, was correctly expounded by J. D. Michaelis in the notes to his translation. We must picture the towns and the surrounding fields as squares, the pasturage as stretching 1000 cubits from the city wall in every direction, as the accompanying figures show, and the length of each outer side as 2000 cubits, apart from the length of the city wall: so that, if the town itself occupied a square of 1000 cubits (see fig. a), the outer side of the town fields would measure 2000 + 1000 cubits in every direction; but if each side of the city wall was only 500 cubits long (see fig. b), the outer side of the town fields would measure 2000 + 500 cubits in every direction.

We have in this chapter the determination of another question that arose upon the case of the daughters of Zelophehad. God had appointed that they should inherit, Num 27:7. Now here, I. An inconvenience is suggested, in case they should marry into any other tribe (Num 36:1-4). II. It is prevented by a divine appointment that they should marry in their own tribe and family (Num 36:5-7), and this is settled for a rule in like cases (Num 36:8, Num 36:9); and they did marry accordingly to some of their own relations (Num 36:10-12), and with this the book concludes (Num 36:13).

35:4-5 Readers have long attempted to explain the alleged contradiction between the 1,500 feet and the 3,000 feet. If the Hebrews conceived of a town as a fixed point, then the square of territory around each town would measure 3,000 feet on each side. Another solution is to see a distinction between pastureland (35:4) and larger pastureland (35:5) around the town. On the basis of this text, some Jewish interpreters restricted the distance that one could walk on the Sabbath to 3,000 feet (2,000 cubits) from home.