God Provided for the Levites

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to talk about the Levites. Have they just been forgotten? Where are they supposed to live? What are they supposed to do? There's all sorts of... They didn't get anything. They don't get any lands. Are they just homeless? Are they really sojourners and pilgrims? Do they just wander around all the time? What happens to these Levites? Well, God hadn't forgotten about them, and he's going to provide for them.
So why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. Please help us to understand it. Please help us to walk in your ways to Lord to see what you would have for us. Please teach us in Jesus's name. Amen.
We are at Joshua chapter 21. where we're going to go through and read about the cities of the Levites. Then the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel.
And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The Lord commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in. with their common lands for our livestock. So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance at the commandment of the Lord these cities and their common lands. Now the lot came out from the family of the Kohathites And the children of Aaron the priest, who were the Levites, had thirteen cities by Lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin. The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by the Lot of the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh. And the children of Gershon had thirteen cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar, and from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Basin. The children of Merari, according to their families, had twelve tribes from the tribe of Reuben, and from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common lands by lot to the Levites as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses.
So Levi has three sons, right? So he has three sons. Now they're given different lands, right? So the children of Kohath, they get lands, right? So that's where it starts with. In verses 4 and 5 and then you have the second son Gershon and he gets land from various tribes and the third son Merari and he gets lands from other tribes. So these three different divisions get their land. So what's going to come next is going to be both Aaron and his sons, the cities they get, as well as each of these three different plans within the tribe of Levi. So the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merarites.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna switch over here. Instead of showing a map, I'm gonna show you a table. This table is accessible to all of us. I have no clue who created this. This is from the, from Wikipedia, right? But whoever created this, it's actually pretty good.
And so I'm gonna go through, because in the first part, verses nine, 9-19 is going to talk about the land given to Aaron and his sons. So let's read that and then I'll kind of move it around as we go and we'll explore this table together. So verses 9-19 on the Aaronites.
So they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah, and from the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are designated by name, which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, for the law was theirs first.
And they gave them Kirjath Arba, Arba was the father of Anak, which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah, with the common land surrounding it. But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as his possession. Interesting, remember Caleb had captured Kirjath Arba, he had conquered the giants of Anak, right?
And now he gives the city proper itself to Aaron and Aaron's sons. And so it's one of those things where he receives from the Lord and we find in his old age he now even gives to it. So he keeps the villages and stuff like that, but the city he gives back.
Verse 13, Thus the children of Aaron, the priests, they gave Hebron with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Libna with its common land, Jetir with its common land, Eshtemaa with its common land, Holon with its common land, Debir with its common land, and Ein with its common land, Jutta with its common land, and Beth Shemesh with its common land. Nine cities for those two tribes. and are from those two tribes. And from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common land, Giba with its common land, Anathoth with its common land, and Almon with its common land. Four cities, all the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were 13 cities with their common lands. So this is where, as we're able to see in the chart, here's all the Aaronites. So the children of Aaron, so this is the priests of the tribe.
Notice one of them has this little diamond there that's showing that it is one of the cities of refuge. So we've talked about that in the law where those who were fleeing the manslayer were able to go and tell their trial to see if they were murderers or if they had accidentally committed manslaughter. So here's the different cities and we're able to tell that they come from different tribes. But these different tribes are mainly Simeon, Benjamin, and Judah. Right, so it kind of down in the south.
So that's where Aaron and his boys his family is gonna go So what about the next tribe? So first is 20 through 26 is the Kohathites So here it's going to list the Gershonites first, but in the scriptures order, it's going to be the Kohathites so it was alphabetical order, but we're doing it in the order of the Bible, so Here we go for the Kohathites. So these are the people who would bear all the stuff, right? They weren't allowed to touch the holy things or see the holy things, right? But they were to be those who carried them. So verses 20 through 26.
And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the children of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from them, from the tribe of Ephraim. for they gave them Shechem with its common land in the mountains of Ephraim, a city of refuge for the slayer, Gezer with its common land, Kabzim with its common land, and Bethhoron with its common land, four cities, and from the tribe of Dan Alteca with its common land, Gibithon with its common land, Ajalon with its common land, and Gathramon with its common land, four cities. And from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanakh with its common land, and Gathramon with its common land, two cities. All the ten cities with their common lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kohath." So we're able to see those different Kohathite cities there that are listed and we're able to see that they come from the tribes of Ephraim and from the tribe of Dan and from the half-tribe of Manasseh.
So that's where these are coming from. So let's go ahead and go back up to the Gershonites. Also to the children of Kirshen, of the families of the Levites from the other half-tribe of Manasseh, they gave Golan in Bashan, so this is on the other side of the Jordan River, so we're talking about the Transjordan city here. They gave Golan in Bashan, with its common land, a city of refuge for the Slayer. and Be-Esarach, with its common land, two cities.
From the tribe of Issachar, Kishon, with its common land, Deberath, with its common land, Jarmuth, with its common land, and In-Ganim, with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Asher, Mishal, with its common land, Abdan, with its common land, Helkath with its common land and Rehob with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its common land, Hamath Dor with its common land and Kartan with its common land, three cities. All the cities of the Gershonites according to their families were 13 cities with their common lands.
So again we have Gershon here and they receive their land right Gershon receives their land from Asher Issachar and Manasseh as well as Naphtali and so we see that they have both Golan on the Transjordan side as well as Kedesh in Galilee which is also a but it's a city of refuge but it's on the western side of the Jordan. Okay, let's go on to the last of the tribe. So the Mararites. So the Mararites here.
And to the families of the children of Marari, the rest of the Levites from the tribe of Zebulun, Jachnium with its common land, Karta with its common land, Dimna with its common land, and Nahalal with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common land, Jahaz with its common land, Kedemoth with its common land, and Mephath with its common land, four cities. From the tribe of Gad, Ramoth, and Gilead with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Mahanaim with its common land, Heshbon with its common land, and Jezer with its common land, four cities in all. All the cities of the children of Marari, according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites, by their lot was twelve cities."
So again we're able to see this Bezer and Ramoth Gilead are these cities of refuge that are listed here on on as I'm looking at the screen here. If you're watching the video, you'll be able to see this. If you're just listening to it, you can go find the video or just look that up on the Wikipedia page. But what we find here is their land is coming from Gad, Reuben, and Zebulun. So these are the tribes. And we find that they're giving it, right? They're coming and the Levites are saying, hey, God said we are going to get cities.
We don't get to have entire lands. They still need to have gardens and houses. They still need to be able to raise their animals. They're not 100% all the time at the temple or the tabernacle. So what do they do in the meantime? Well, they also get but in their getting they also have work that they need to do. So we'll finish out with verse 41 and 42.
All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were 48 cities with their common lands. Every one of these cities had its common land surrounding it. Thus were all the cities." So the Levites, God had not forsaken them, God had not disinherited them, right? Their inheritance was the Lord himself and yet they were to be in the cities and I think God was strategically placing the Levites sprinkled and spread out through all the land. To be this savor of salt unto the people that no matter where the people went They knew that there would be servants of the Lord who were Peppered all throughout the region. And so the Lord was telling them you don't get a you know this tribes Inheritance with this specific land and here's its boundaries, but you get all these different cities and as a people as a as a tribe They were going to be this reminder from the Lord that he was with his people and that their ultimate inheritance was the Lord himself.
So what's this section about? Well, this is the sons of Levi getting their cities, right? This is tribe by tribe. And I think in my Bible when we get this for best first I would underline verse 1 21 1 but I would also underline verse 3 So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance at the commandment of the Lord these cities and their common lands Last see what are we called to do?
The Lord gives us so much. He's so gracious to us. Our family is memorizing the question in the catechism right now. What does the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer teach us? God gives us good stuff. And we pray for a competent portion of the good things in this life. We want His blessing with them.
But one of the things about a thankful heart that's cultivated, what we find in these tribes, is they're not sitting here grumbling and complaining, oh man, we gotta give them to these stupid Levites, right? They got the Lord, they got the temple, isn't that enough for them? No, they, out of a heart, because they love God, They freely give to the Levites as well. I think about Caleb himself, right? He went to war. He fought against the giants, and then what does he do with his stuff? He's generous with it.
I think there's a way in which even we as Christians can become tight-fisted rather than being generous, recognizing the good things that God's given us, and even being willing to give it back unto the Lord's work. I know I can be tempted that way at times, but the Lord is good.
He provides so much for us, and we can bless others with it as well. Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much that You showed Your generosity towards us in sending Your Son to die for us while we were yet sinners. And so, Father, we pray that we would be generous as well. We thank You that You have not left us without a testimony. But Father, we thank You that even as your people are spread out throughout the world as strangers, sojourners, pilgrims in this life, Lord, we pray that we would be a salt and a light to those around us and that we would be generous with all the good things you've given us to bless others because you have blessed us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may you look to Jesus Christ May you look forward to that. And may God bless you. I'll see you next time. Bye.