and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
Which the children of Aaron, being of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, had: for theirs was the first lot.
And they were for the sons of Aaron from the clans of the Kohathite from the sons of Levi, because the first lot was for them.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
to the descendants of Aaron from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them:
to the descendants of Aaron from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them:
Which the children of Aaron, being of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, had: for theirs was the first lot.
and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi: for theirs was the first lot.
And they were the childrens of Aaron being of the families of the Kohathites, and of the sonnes of Leui, (for theirs was the first lot)
To the sons of Aaron, of the families of Caath of the race of Levi (for the first lot came out for them)
and they are for the sons of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathite, of the sons of Levi, for theirs hath been the first lot;
and they are for the sons of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathite, of the sons of Levi, for the first lot has been theirs;
These cities were given to the descendants of Aaron, who were among the clans of the Kohathites, who in turn were from the tribe of Levi. For the first casting of lots had fallen to them.
And they were for the sons of Aaron from the clans of the Kohathite from the sons of Levi, because the first lot was for them.
and which the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, of the children of Levi had (for theirs was the first lot);
and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
Which the children of Aaron, being of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, had: for theirs was the first lot.
to the families of the Kothaites, descendants of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, since the first lot fell to them:
These were for the children of Aaron among the families of the Kohathites, of the children of Levi: for they came first in the distribution.
And they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is הַקְּהָתִ֖י Kohathites H6956 — appearing just 15 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
הַקְּהָתִ֖י Kohathites H6956 occurs in 15 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 27 words from the Hebrew and 21 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 12 Hebrew tokens and 16 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Topical passages linked to Joshua 21:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַֽיְהִי֙ לִבְנֵ֣י אַהֲרֹ֔ן מִמִּשְׁפְּח֥וֹת הַקְּהָתִ֖י מִבְּנֵ֣י לֵוִ֑י כִּ֥י לָהֶ֛ם הָיָ֥ה הַגּוֹרָ֖ל רִיאשֹׁנָֽה
and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for theirs was the first lot.
World English Bible · Public Domain
ὁ υἱός ἀαρών ἀπό ὁ δῆμος ὁ κααθ ὁ υἱός λευι ὅτι οὗτος γίγνομαι ὁ κλῆρος
to the sons of Aaron of the family of Caath of the sons of Levi, for the lot fell to these.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וַהֲוָה לִבְנֵי אַהֲרֹן מִזַרְעֲיַת קְהָת מִבְּנֵי לֵוָאֵי אֲרֵי לְהוֹן הֲוָה עַדְבָא בְּקַדְמֵיתָא:
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Joshua, in the Historical, opens this verse with 12 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Qŏhâthîy (“Kohathites”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Joshua 21:10 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley's Explanatory Notes
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.