Levitical city

Each settlement was to comprise a walled city and the common land around it for pasture, measured radially as one thousand cubits (about 460 m (0.29 mi)) in each direction,[1] or as a square measuring two thousand cubits (about 920 m (0.57 mi)) along each side.

[2] The land for the cities was to be "donated" by the host tribe[3] and was allocated to the Levites according to their tribal sub-divisions.

[5] Joshua 21 recounts the fulfilment of God's command at the request of the Levite leaders.

The following table reflects the list in Joshua 21: John Calvin suggested that the Levites had initially been "overlooked" in the allocation of land on entry to the Promised Land, until the Levites brought forward a reminder of the divine commandment, making this an example of how: However, the writer of the Pulpit Commentary disagreed: This "arrangement" was the fulfilment of Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 49:5-7 - I will scatter them (Simeon and Levi) in Israel - which was a punishment for Simeon and Levi's massacre of the men of Shechem.

Matthew Henry commented that Jacob's condemnation of Levi became a blessing for Israel:

Cities of Refuge (illustration from a Bible card published 1901 by the Providence Lithograph Company)
Map of the territory of Benjamin , with the Levitical cities of Almon, Anathoth , Geba and Gibeon circled with common land.