Suburbs
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words [1]
A. Noun.
Migrâsh ( מִגְרָשָׁה , Strong'S #4054), “suburbs; pasture land; open land.” This noun occurs about 100 times, mainly in Joshua and First Chronicles. It denotes the untilled ground outside a city or the “pasture land” belonging to the cities: “For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim: therefore they gave no part unto the Levites in the land, save cities to dwell in, with their suburbs for their cattle and for their substance” (Josh. 14:4).
Ezekiel describes a strip of land for the Levites around the city. Part of the land was to be used for houses and part to be left: “And the five thousand, that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof” (Ezek. 48:15). The Septuagint translates the word perisporia (“suburb”).
B. Verb.
Gârash ( גָּרַשׁ , Strong'S #1644), “to drive out, cast out.” This verb occurs about 45 times. An early occurrence in the Old Testament is in Exod. 34:11: “… Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite.…” The word may be used of a divorced woman as in Lev. 21:7—a woman that is “put away from her husband.”
King James Dictionary [2]
SUB'URBS, n. L. suburbium sub and urbs, a city.
1. A building without the walls of a city, but near them or more generally, the parts that lie without the walls, but in the vicinity of a city. The word may signify buildings, streets or territory. We say, a house stands in the suburbs a garden is situated in the suburbs of London or Paris. 2. The confines the out part.
The suburb of their straw-built citadel.
Easton's Bible Dictionary [3]
Numbers 35:3,7 Ezekiel 45:2 2 Kings 23:11 1 Chronicles 26:18
Holman Bible Dictionary [4]
Leviticus 25:34[[Cities And Urban Life]]
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
is the rendering, in the A.V., regularly of מַגַרָשׁ , Nigr-Eash, properly a Pasture ( 1 Chronicles 5:16; Ezekiel 48:15); hence the open country around a city used for grazing ( Numbers 35:2; Joshua 21:11; 1 Chronicles 6:40; 1 Chronicles 13:2, etc.), or for any other purpose ( Ezekiel 27:28; Ezekiel 45:2; Ezekiel 48:17). Once ( 2 Kings 23:11), it stands for פִּרְוָר , Parvar, which is but a MS. variation of PARBAR (See Parbar) (q.v.).
