Joshua 21:1

Joshua 21:1-3. The Demand of the Levites

1. Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites "The princes of the meynees of Leuy," Wyclif. All the descendants of Jacob had now been provided for save the sons of Levi. The dying patriarch had spoken solemnly and sadly of this tribe, as also of that named after his second son (Genesis 49:5-7),

"Simeon and Levi are brethren;

Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.…

I will divide them in Jacob,

And scatter them in Israel."

Like other prophecies and promises of Scripture, his words were destined to be moulded and modified by subsequent events. How they were fulfilled in the history of Simeon we have already seen. But though they were still more literally fulfilled in the case of the children of Levi, "the curse was with them turned into a blessing." Their zeal and fidelity were put to the proof and not found wanting on the occasion of the terrible apostasy at Horeb (Exodus 32:25-29), and although they were still destined to be "divided in Jacob," it was as the successors of the earlier priesthood of the first-born and representatives of the holiness of the people. "As the Tabernacle was the outward and visible sign of the presence among the people of their invisible King, so the Levites were to be, among the other tribes of Israel, as the royal body-guard that waited exclusively on Him" (Numbers 1:47-54; Numbers 3:5-13).

unto Eleazar the priest The duties they had already discharged during the wanderings in the wilderness could not fail to be much modified by the settlement in the Promised Land and the establishment of the Tabernacle in a fixed locality. They themselves now needed a fixed abode, and the heads of the tribe, therefore, approached the High Priest and the distributors of the land, and requested that adequate provision might be made for their requirements.