Town

A large concentration of dwellings, often walled, to be distinguished from the larger cities.

A town was a large concentration of dwellings

1 Samuel 23:7 See also Joshua 19:50; Mark 6:10; Acts 16:4

When Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, he said, “God has delivered him into my hand, for he has trapped himself by entering a town with gates and bars.”

Town officials

Deuteronomy 16:18; Judges 8:14–16 See also Deuteronomy 19:12, Deuteronomy 21:3, Deuteronomy 21:19, Deuteronomy 22:15, Deuteronomy 25:7; Ruth 4:2; 1 Samuel 16:4; Ezra 10:14; Luke 18:2–3

You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

There he captured a young man of Succoth and interrogated him. The young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven leaders and elders of Succoth. And Gideon went to the men of Succoth and said, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give bread to your weary men?’” Then he took the elders of the city, and using the thorns and briers of the wilderness, he disciplined the men of Succoth.

Town records

Ruth 4:10 See also Luke 2:3–4

Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, to raise up the name of the deceased through his inheritance, so that his name will not disappear from among his brothers or from the gate of his home. You are witnesses today.”

Laws concerning towns

Leviticus 25:33; Numbers 35:4–5

Town celebrations and worship

Deuteronomy 16:5 See also 1 Samuel 9:10–14, 1 Samuel 20:29; 2 Chronicles 28:25

You are not to sacrifice the Passover animal in any of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you.

The town was a close-knit community

Ruth 1:19 See also 1 Samuel 4:13

So Naomi and Ruth traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women of the town exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

Towns associated with Jesus Christ

Matthew 13:54 Nazareth, his home town; Luke 4:31 Capernaum in Galilee; Luke 8:1, Luke 8:4; John 4:5 Sychar in Samaria

Wickedness in towns

Deuteronomy 13:13 See also Judges 6:30; 2 Kings 2:23; 2 Chronicles 30:10; Matthew 23:34

that wicked men have arisen from among you and have led the people of their city astray, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods” (which you have not known),

Judgment on towns

Deuteronomy 13:15; Isaiah 25:2 See also 2 Kings 3:19; Matthew 10:11

you must surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword. Devote to destruction all its people and livestock.

Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.