complete verse (Joshua 21:42)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Joshua 21:42:

  • Kupsabiny: “In all the land that the people of Israel got, the clan of Levi, were granted forty-eight cities together with where one could graze (animals).” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “These cities all had grazing land around them for their cattle, all the cities were like that.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “48 towns/cities (in)-all, including each of their pasturelands, (were) what the descendants of Levi received from the land that the Israelinhon possessed.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “and each city had surrounding pastureland.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Joshua 21:41 - 21:43

These verses conclude the section. The Hebrew text is quite repetitious (see Revised Standard Version); Good News Translation has reduced the number of words without omitting any information, but one may also translate “The Levites received from the other tribes of Israel a total of forty-eight cities, with the pasture lands around them.” Or “The other tribes of Israel gave to the tribe of Levi a total of forty-eight cities, with the pasture lands around them.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Joshua 21:42

21:42

Each of these cities had its own surrounding pasturelands: This information has been stated in verse 21:41. It is repeated here to emphasize that the Levites received pasture lands for their use.

this was true for all the cities: The clause this was true for all the cities further emphasizes that each town had pasturelands around it for the Levites to use.

If it is not natural in your language to repeat this information it may be possible to combine verse 41 and 42. For example:

From the land that the people of Israel possessed, a total of forty-eight cities, with the pasture lands around them, was given to the Levites (Good News Translation)

Here are some other ways to translate this verse:

Each one of these towns had its own grasslands around it.
-or-
All of these towns had grazing lands surrounding them. They were the same in this way.

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.