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In Joshua 21
● notice that allotting by “lot“ (4, 5, 6, 8) returns,
● notice that the Levitical heads of houses (1) come to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua, and to the “heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel” (1) with report of a prior command of the Lord (2) to Moses (referring to Numbers 35:1-8) about cities for the Levites,
● understand that the decisions about cities have a hint of ceremony about them: lots are used but used in the presence of something like a council, so that the results are not merely the work of chance but pronounced as the “command of the Lord” (3),
● ponder the implications of this distributing of the Levites among the other tribes, a kind of leavening perhaps and a delegation of work to be done,
● remember God’s intention to place the six cities of refuge among the cities given to the Levites, set apart cities among set apart cities, again suggesting purposeful placement, an ordering of the people of God, and
● notice in the itemizing the specification of “pasturelands” around the cities, also a reference back to Numbers 35, a further showing that what God had announced to Moses was now coming to be, and
● see how the chapter ends declaratively, celebrating the fulfilment of “all the good promises” (45) of the Lord: the sworn land (44), the sworn rest (44), and the sum of all the enemies given “into their hands” (44).
Thank you,

Randy Tumlinson