'Cities' in the Bible

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let’s send men ahead of us, so that they may explore the land for us and bring us back a report about the route we should go up and the cities we will come to.’

Where can we go? Our brothers have discouraged us, saying: The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, fortified to the heavens. We also saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’

At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed the people of every city, including the women and children. We left no survivors.

We took only the livestock and the spoil from the cities we captured as plunder for ourselves.

But you did not go near the Ammonites’ land, all along the bank of the Jabbok River, the cities of the hill country, or any place that the Lord our God had forbidden.

We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: 60 cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.

all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

“At that time we took possession of this land. I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the area extending from Aroer by the Arnon Valley, and half the hill country of Gilead along with its cities.

But your wives, young children, and livestock—I know that you have a lot of livestock—will remain in the cities I have given you

Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan to the east.

Someone could flee there who committed manslaughter, killing his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him. He could flee to one of these cities and stay alive:

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would give you—a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build,

“Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go and drive out nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.

“If you hear it said about one of your cities the Lord your God is giving you to live in,

“When the Lord your God annihilates the nations whose land He is giving you, so that you drive them out and live in their cities and houses,

you are to set apart three cities for yourselves within the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

You are to determine the distances and divide the land the Lord your God is granting you as an inheritance into three regions, so that anyone who commits manslaughter can flee to these cities.

If he goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings the ax to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, that person may flee to one of these cities and live.

This is why I am commanding you to set apart three cities for yourselves.

provided you keep every one of these commands I am giving you today and follow them, loving the Lord your God and walking in His ways at all times—you are to add three more cities to these three.

But if someone hates his neighbor, lies in ambush for him, attacks him, and strikes him fatally, and flees to one of these cities,

This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and are not among the cities of these nations.

However, you must not let any living thing survive among the cities of these people the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the nearby cities.