CHAPTER 20 THE CITIES OF REFUGE APPOINTED. This chapter tells of the renewal of the command to appoint cities of refuge so that they would be available for those who committed manslaughter ‘unwittingly' to flee to. There they would find refuge from the avenger of blood. The orders are then carried... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ And he shall flee to one of those cities, and shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, and they shall take him into the city to them, and give him a place, that he might dwell among them.' The man seeking refuge would come t... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the manslayer up into his hand, because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and did not hate him beforehand.' The man who escapes to a city of refuge and claims innocency of intent must be protected until tried and only han... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ And he shall dwell in that city until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days. Then shall the slayer return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from where he fled.' The manslayer must eventually be trie... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriatharba, the same is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah.' Three cities were set aside (see Deuteronomy 19:2), a complete number, one in each part of the land. Notice that all... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ And beyond the Jordan of Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness, in the tableland out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.' Provision for a further three cities was necessary because of the Transjor... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them, that whoever kills any person unwittingly might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.' The provision was for the sojourner as... [ Continue Reading ]