• Old Testament

    Levites, the Land, and Acts 4:36-37

    It is a well known fact that the Levites as a clan were not given their own land allotment amongst their fellow clans. The Levites were not left completely homeless however, for they were given cities to dwell in among their brothers (cf. Josh 14:4). One of the common conceptions is that this means that Levites never owned land. However, there are two passages in particular that seem to indicate that it was allowable for Levites to own land, as long as it was in the city (or part of the pasturelands of that city) which belonged to the Levites. The first text is Jeremiah 32:6-8 where the Lord himself tells Jeremiah (a priest himself, thus being of the tribe of Levi) to buy the field of his uncle in Anathoth. Now Anathoth is in the land of Benjamin, and according to Joshua 21:18 this specific land was given to…