Numbers 35:4-6

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Numbers 35:4 tn Heb “1,000 cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about 18 inches (45 cm) in length, so this would be a distance of 1,500 feet or 500 yards (457.2 meters).
2. Numbers 35:5 tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.
3. Numbers 35:5 tn Heb “2,000 cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (914.4 meters).
4. Numbers 35:5 sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land—in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of 2,000 cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”
5. Numbers 35:6 tn The “manslayer” is the verb “to kill” in a participial form, providing the subject of the clause. The verb means “to kill”; it can mean accidental killing, premeditated killing, or capital punishment. The clause uses the infinitive to express purpose or result: “to flee there the manslayer,” means “so that the manslayer may flee there.”