Moreover the gatekeepers, Akkub, Talmon, and their brethren that kept the gates, were a hundred seventy and two.
Read Chapter 11
Bede
AD 735
The arrangement was now completed. It was begun as soon as the city was made, but until the total number of the people had been counted and the feast of the seventh month had been completed, it was impossible to determine who should reside in the holy city itself and who in the other cities. Now it is consistent with the figures of the sacraments that the rulers of the people are reported to have settled in Jerusalem. For it is proper that those in charge of the holy church should surpass the common people in the merits of their life by as much as they surpass them in the greatness of their power. For the remaining cities of Israel represent the devout lifestyle of the common people of God, whereas the act of settling in Jerusalem specifically represents the conduct of those who, having already overcome the struggle of the vices, draw near to the vision of heavenly peace with an unimpeded mind according to the psalmist’s saying: “The Lord loves the gates of Zion above all the tabernacles of Jacob.” Thus it follows that the reason that a tenth part of the people chosen by lot take their dwelling in Jerusalem but the remaining nine parts reside in their cities is doubtless that it is a mark of the perfect (namely, of those who wholly keep the precepts of the Decalogue in the love of God and neighbor) to draw near in mind to the heavenly secrets and, so to speak, to imitate the peace of the highest blessedness amid the whirlwinds of this transient life; and yet the door to eternal life also remains open to those who keep God’s general commandments, according to what the Lord declares in the Gospel to the rich man who questioned him. For such people dwell as it were in cities given to them by the Lord because by keeping the sacred law they remain constantly vigilant to defend themselves from the attacks of the ancient enemy. But those who wish to be perfect and follow the Lord by selling all their belongings and giving them as alms for the poor are those who dwell as it were “in the citadel of Jerusalem” and next to the temple of God and the ark of the covenant because they approach the grace of their Creator in a more sublime way. It is well said that their dwelling in the holy city was granted to them not by the foresight of human choice but by the outcome of a lot, just as during Joshua’s time the ownership of the rest of the cities was given to the children of Israel by lot, no doubt because both the small things of the small man and the great things of the great man come about not through the freedom or industriousness of his own will but by the gift of the hidden judge and provider.
