God's Geography: The Holy Scatter
Introduction: The Folly of the Central Planners
We live in an age that worships at the altar of centralization. Our political masters, our technocratic elites, our educational theorists, they all believe that the solution to any problem is to gather all the power, all the data, and all the "experts" into one central hub. From Washington D.C. to Brussels, the operating assumption is that wisdom is something to be concentrated, managed, and then dispensed from on high to the benighted masses in the provinces. They believe in the command economy, the command culture, and the command morality. And the result is always the same: incompetence, tyranny, and fragility.
When you read a passage like the one before us today, a long list of Levitical cities, the modern eye glazes over. It seems like tedious biblical bookkeeping, irrelevant administrative data from a long-dead Bronze Age society. We think of geography as a secular subject, a matter of maps and borders, having nothing to do with theology. But this is a profound mistake. God is the Lord of geography. He is the one who sets the boundaries of the nations (Acts 17:26), and He cares deeply about where His people live, and why. This list is not tedious data; it is a divine blueprint for a healthy, decentralized, God-saturated society. It is God's polemic against the top-heavy, soul-crushing empires of man. What we have here is a description of a kingdom's nervous system, designed to ensure that the knowledge of God would flow to every remote corner of the land.
The Text
Now these are their settlements according to their camps within their borders. To the sons of Aaron of the families of the Kohathites (for the lot was theirs first), to them they gave Hebron in the land of Judah, with its pasture lands all around it; but the fields of the city and its villages, they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh. To the sons of Aaron they gave the following cities of refuge: Hebron, Libnah also with its pasture lands, Jattir, Eshtemoa with its pasture lands, Hilen with its pasture lands, Debir with its pasture lands, Ashan with its pasture lands, and Beth-shemesh with its pasture lands; from the tribe of Benjamin: Geba with its pasture lands, Allemeth with its pasture lands, and Anathoth with its pasture lands. All their cities throughout their families were thirteen cities. Now to the rest of the sons of Kohath were given by lot, from the family of the tribe, from the half-tribe, the half of Manasseh, ten cities. And to the sons of Gershom, according to their families, were given from the tribe of Issachar and from the tribe of Asher, the tribe of Naphtali, and the tribe of Manasseh, thirteen cities in Bashan. To the sons of Merari were given by lot, according to their families, from the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities. So the sons of Israel gave to the Levites the cities with their pasture lands. They also gave by lot from the tribe of the sons of Judah, the tribe of the sons of Simeon, and the tribe of the sons of Benjamin, these cities which are mentioned here by name. Now some of the families of the sons of Kohath had cities of their territory from the tribe of Ephraim. And they gave to them the following cities of refuge: Shechem, with its pasture lands, in the hill country of Ephraim, and Gezer with its pasture lands, Jokmeam with its pasture lands, Beth-horon with its pasture lands, Aijalon with its pasture lands, and Gath-rimmon with its pasture lands; and from the half-tribe of Manasseh: Aner with its pasture lands and Bileam with its pasture lands, for the family of the rest of the sons of Kohath. To the sons of Gershom were given, from the family of the half-tribe of Manasseh: Golan in Bashan with its pasture lands and Ashtaroth with its pasture lands; and from the tribe of Issachar: Kedesh with its pasture lands, Daberath with its pasture lands, and Ramoth with its pasture lands, Anem with its pasture lands; and from the tribe of Asher: Mashal with its pasture lands, Abdon with its pasture lands, Hukok with its pasture lands, and Rehob with its pasture lands; and from the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee with its pasture lands, Hammon with its pasture lands, and Kiriathaim with its pasture lands. To the sons of Merari, the rest of the Levites, were given, from the tribe of Zebulun: Rimmono with its pasture lands, Tabor with its pasture lands; and beyond the Jordan at Jericho, on the east side of the Jordan, were given them, from the tribe of Reuben: Bezer in the wilderness with its pasture lands, Jahzah with its pasture lands, Kedemoth with its pasture lands, and Mephaath with its pasture lands; and from the tribe of Gad: Ramoth in Gilead with its pasture lands, Mahanaim with its pasture lands, Heshbon with its pasture lands, and Jazer with its pasture lands.
(1 Chronicles 6:54-81 LSB)
A Redeemed Curse (vv. 62-64)
To understand what is happening here, we have to go all the way back to Genesis. As the patriarch Jacob lay dying, he pronounced blessings and curses on his sons. When he came to Simeon and Levi, he recalled their fierce, murderous anger in the incident at Shechem. He says this:
"Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." (Genesis 49:7)
For Simeon, this scattering was a straightforward curse. Their tribe was absorbed into Judah and effectively disappeared from the biblical record. But for Levi, God did something remarkable. He took the very substance of the curse, the scattering, and transformed it into the central feature of their holy calling. Levi would have no single, consolidated territory like Judah or Ephraim. They were to be intentionally sprinkled throughout the entire nation. The judgment of being scattered became the privilege of being God's distributed network of teachers and priests.
This is a profound principle of God's redemptive grace. He does not simply erase the consequences of our sin; He often redeems them, sanctifies them, and makes them the very instrument of His purpose. He takes the broken pieces of our lives, the things that were a consequence of our folly, and He builds His church with them. The curse for Levi was that they would not be a cohesive, landed political power. The blessing for Israel was that every tribe, every clan, would have Levites living in their midst, teaching them the law of God and leading them in worship. God turned a punishment into a parish map.
A Kingdom's Nervous System (vv. 54, 61, 63)
So what was the function of this scattering? The Levites were not simply scattered to be scattered. They were God's ordained method for catechizing the nation. They were the teachers, the judges, the public health officials, and the worship leaders. In Deuteronomy, Moses blesses Levi, saying, "They shall teach Jacob Your judgments, and Israel Your law" (Deut. 33:10).
By placing Levitical cities in the territories of every other tribe, God was ensuring that no Israelite would be far from the teaching of the Torah. He was embedding His Word into the very social and geographical fabric of the nation. This is God's plan for discipleship. It is not a centralized, top-down program. It is a decentralized, grassroots, relational reality. A man in Naphtali didn't have to travel to Jerusalem to learn God's law; he could walk to the Levitical city of Kedesh and speak to the teachers there.
Notice the constant refrain: "with its pasture lands." This is crucial. The Levites were not a detached, monastic class, living in ivory towers and contemplating abstractions. They were to have livestock. They were to be involved in the local economy. They were to be neighbors. Their livelihood was tied to the land and the people they served. This prevented the development of a priestly caste that was out of touch with the lives of ordinary people. They were in the world, living alongside the farmers of Zebulun and the shepherds of Reuben, precisely so they could teach them how God's Word applied to their lives.
Geography of Grace (vv. 57, 67)
Embedded within this list is one of the most beautiful pictures of the gospel in the Old Testament. We are explicitly told that some of these Levitical cities were designated as "cities of refuge." Hebron, Shechem, Golan, and others are mentioned.
What was a city of refuge? According to the law in Numbers 35, if a man accidentally killed another, the "avenger of blood" (a kinsman of the deceased) had the right to execute him. But the law provided a place of mercy. The manslayer could flee to one of these six designated cities. As long as he remained within the city, he was safe. He was to live there until the death of the high priest, at which point he could return home without fear of vengeance.
Now, think about this. Where does God place these cities of grace? He places them under the administration of the Levites, the very tribe entrusted with teaching God's law. The ministers of God's perfect, holy, and demanding law are also the stewards of God's radical, life-saving mercy. This is not a contradiction. It is the heart of the gospel. The law is what shows us our guilt. The law is the "avenger of blood" that pursues us because we are all, in some sense, guilty. And where do we flee? We flee to the one place where the demands of the law and the provision of mercy meet. The law points us to our need for refuge, and the ministers of the law are the ones who are supposed to be standing at the city gates, welcoming us in.
The New Covenant Scatter
This entire system was a magnificent type, a shadow of the reality that was to come in Jesus Christ. For we who are in Christ are the true Levites. We are the "royal priesthood" and the "holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9). We are the ones who have been entrusted with the ministry of the Word.
And what is the central mission given to this new priesthood? It is a mission of scattering. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19). At Pentecost, the Spirit fell, and the church was born. And what did God use to push the church out of its comfortable nest in Jerusalem? He used persecution. "Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts 8:4). The pattern holds. God scatters His people so that the knowledge of His glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
We are not called to build a holy ghetto, to withdraw from the world into a Christian compound. We are called to be the holy scatter. We are to be Levites in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, on our school boards. We are to live with and among the people, with our "pasture lands," our ordinary jobs and economic lives, and from that place, we are to teach the law of the King. We are to show our neighbors what true justice and righteousness look like.
And above all, we are to be stewards of the City of Refuge. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate High Priest, and He is our ultimate City of Refuge. When the avenger of blood, our own guilty conscience and the accusations of the devil, is hot on our heels, we do not flee to a geographical location. We flee to a person. We run to Christ. He is the one who took the stroke of justice we deserved. By His death, the death of our Great High Priest, we are set free. Our task as His scattered priests is to stand on the roadsides of this world and point all the weary, guilty, and pursued sinners to Him. He is the only safe place. This ancient list of cities is not just a map of Israel; it is a map of the gospel. It shows a God who scatters His truth into every corner and provides a refuge for all who would flee to Him.