All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight cities with their suburbs.
All the cities of the Levites ... were forty and eight cities with their suburbs. This may appear too great a proportion compared with those of the other tribes, and it forms one of the strongest objections which Colenso has urged against the historical character of this book. But it must be borne in mind that the list given here contains the names of every Levitical city (see the notes at 1 Chronicles 6:39; 1 Chronicles 6:66); whereas only those cities of the other tribes are mentioned which lay on the frontier or along the boundary line. Besides, the Levites were not the exclusive inhabitants of those 48 cities; because there must have been also a considerable number of people kept there to cultivate the glebe lands and tend the cattle (cf. 2 Samuel 5:5; Jeremiah 11:21).
Further, the Levitical cities had nothing but 'their suburbs-a limited circuit of ground-round about them; whereas the other cities in Israel possessed a group of independent villages, (see Joshua 17:1-18; Joshua 18:1-28; Joshua 19:1-51.) Still further, the number of cities allotted to the priests was to be a permanent arrangement for the accommodation of those sacred functionaries, however large their increase might be, and as it became in the reign of David.