Leader's Home

    The Levites were the spiritual leaders.  They did not get their own territory.  They had to take a piece of each tribes.  They did not get their own land to call their own, so it probably felt kind of like renting a house versus owning a house.  Their homes did have pasture land, so they could keep animals.

    The Levites were responsible for the spiritual guidance, keeping the law, and providing justice.  That means that their homes were always open in a since that they did not have the privilege of privacy.  I think of it kind of like politicians today.  Everyone was watching and judging.

      They ran the cities of refuge which were like prisons, but entire cities.  It was constructed for murderers.  If they ever left, then the families of the murdered (avengers) could kill them.  However, in the city they had protection.  

    There are different kinds of murder: maliciously, an act of passion, accidental, and probably more.  A jury would convict them on which kind.  The premeditated kind were killed, but accidental were sent to the cities.  To be convicted there had to be more than one witness.  It was a serious thing to defile the land by shedding human blood.  There is no atonement for the land.  It becomes permanently tainted for whomever may dwell there.

    It was finalized that the women who had lost their father could get his land because he had no sons.  However, they had to marry within their own tribe, so that the land would not go to another tribe.  No inheritance could be transferred from one tribe to another.  It was the Levites job to ensure this.

Numbers 35-36