It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city
The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there - Yahweh-shammah. Not that the city will be called so in mere name, but that the reality will be best expressed by this descriptive title (Jeremiah 3:17 ; Jeremiah 33:16 ; Zechariah 2:10; Revelation 21:3; Revelation 22:3).
Remarks:
(1) In this chapter is set forth the allotment of the land to the several tribes. It is to be noticed that the places of more or less honour assigned to each tribe are regulated by the degree of faithfulness to the Lord and His ordinances by which the tribes severally were characterized. Thus Judah and Benjamin, the tribes which adhered longest to the ordinances of the temple and to the house of David, when the rest apostatized, shall hold the most honourable positions-Judah the place next the center on the north, Benjamin the corresponding place of honour next the center on the south. Dan, on the contrary, is to have the least honourable place at the extreme north, as having been so early as the time of the Judges in a great degree demoralized and paganized. So in respect to the degrees of glory which await all the saints in the coming kingdom of God, the measure of honour will be regulated by the measure of faithfulness. He who lays out his one pound now so as to gain ten pounds for the Master's glory, shall then receive the government of ten cities: he who with his one pound gains five pounds shall have rule over five cities (Luke 19:15-19). Herein believers have the strongest incentive, not merely to work for the Lord, but to abound in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know our labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).
(2) The names of the twelve tribes are to be severally connected with the twelve gates of the city, because all alike shall have an interest in it in their respective places and stations. So the very humblest believer has his due place appointed to him in the heavenly city that is to come. That shall be a blessed change from the present scene of disorder and confusion, to a world wherein all beneath God, from the highest to the lowest, know and keep their place in the most perfect harmony, love, and blessedness.
(3) The name of the city from that day, in which this beautiful and holy order shall have been established, is to be "Yahweh-shammah," THE LORD IS THERE ( Ezekiel 48:35). The glory and joy of heaven shall not be so much the absence of all present woes, and the presence of all the other good things which God shall bestow, as it shall consist in this, the Lord Himself shall be there, as the everlasting portion, joy, and light of His people. "God Himself shall be with them, and be their God" (Revelation 21:3 ). May he who writes this commentary, and his readers, so know the Lord now by faith that hereafter he and they may have the full fruition of the presence of His glorious Godhead!