Joshua 20:1-9
1 The LORD also spake unto Joshua, saying,
2 Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:
3 That the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
4 And when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.
5 And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime.
6 And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled.
7 And they appointeda Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.
8 And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain 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.
9 These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation.
Now in the twentieth chapter you remember that when they came into the land, they were to establish cities of refuge so that anybody who had killed someone accidentally, who had not had a foremalice or hatred towards the person, but killed them accidentally, they could flee to the city of refuge from the avenger of death.
Now we talked to you about the culture of revenge killing. It was quite a deeply ingrained cultural practice. It is still practiced today in New Guinea, and in some of the more primitive areas, revenge killing. It doesn't matter if they killed your son by accident. If they killed a member of your family, then you were duty bound to kill them or if you couldn't catch them, to kill a member of their family.
So, in these days because there were cases where a person would accidentally kill someone else, they didn't have any hatred or malice against them, but it was just purely an accident. In order to be fair, in order to be just, God had them establish six cities that they called the cities of refuge where you could flee and be safe from the avenger of blood, three on either side of the Jordan River. They were so located in the land that you were never more than a half day's run from one of these cities. You would be running to be sure.
So, as we look at the cities of refuge that were appointed within the land, we find the first one was in the Galilee region, the upper part of the land in Kadesh, which was up in the Galilee region. The second one was right in the southern part of the land in Hebron, which is down in the southern most section. Then the third was at Shechem, which was right in the heart of the land. So really in sort of the middle area of the south in Hebron, in the heart of the land in Shechem, and then up in the Galilee region in Kadesh, the three cities of refuge were established that a person guilty of killing someone accidentally could flee and be protected until he had at least a fair trial. "