Numbers 35

Numbers 35:1 Yahveh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, and this is what he said,

Numbers 35:2 “Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance they possess as cities for them to stay in. And you will give to the Levites pasture-lands around the towns.

Numbers 35:3 The cities will be theirs to stay in, and their pasturelands will be for their herds and their flocks and all their animals.

Numbers 35:4 The pasturelands of the cities, which you will give to the Levites, will reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.

Numbers 35:5 And you will measure, outside the city, on the east side two thousand cubits, and the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle. This will belong to them as pasture-land for their towns.

Numbers 35:6 “The cities that you give to the Levites will be the six cities of refuge, where you will permit the person who unintentionally kills someone to run away, and in addition to them you will give forty-two cities.

Numbers 35:7 All the cities that you give to the Levites will be forty-eight, with their pasturelands.

Numbers 35:8 And as for the cities that you will give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you will take many, and from the smaller tribes you will take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits, will give of its cities to the Levites.”

Numbers 35:9 And Yahveh spoke to Moses, and this is what he said,

Numbers 35:10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

Numbers 35:11 then you will select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the killer who strikes down any throat inadvertently may escape there.

Numbers 35:12 The cities will be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the killer may not die until he stands at the face of the congregation for judgment.

Numbers 35:13 And the cities that you give will be your six cities of refuge.

Numbers 35:14 You will give three cities beyond the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan to be cities of refuge.

Numbers 35:15 These six cities will be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the foreign guest and the temporary resident among them, that anyone who strikes down any throat inadvertently may escape there.

Numbers 35:16 “But if he struck him down with an iron object so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer will be put to death.

Numbers 35:17 And if he struck him down with a stone tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer will be put to death.

Numbers 35:18 Or if he struck him down with a wooden tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer will be put to death.

Numbers 35:19 The avenger of blood will himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he will put him to death.

Numbers 35:20 And if he pushed him out of hatred or hurled something at him, lying in wait, so that he died,

Numbers 35:21 or in animosity struck him down with his hand so that he died, then he who struck the blow will be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood will put the murderer to death when he meets him.

Numbers 35:22 “But if he pushed him suddenly without animosity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait

Numbers 35:23 or used a stone that could cause death, and without seeing him dropped it on him, so that he died, though he was not his enemy and did not seek his harm,

Numbers 35:24 then the congregation will judge between the killer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these rules.

Numbers 35:25 And the congregation will rescue the killer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation will restore him to his city of refuge to which he had escaped, and he will live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.

Numbers 35:26 But if the killer will at any time go beyond the boundaries of his city of refuge to which he ran away,

Numbers 35:27 and the Avenger of Blood find him outside the boundaries of his city of refuge, and the Avenger of Blood kills the killer; he will not be guilty of blood.

Numbers 35:28 Because he must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest, but after the death of the high priest, the killer may return to the land of his possession.

Numbers 35:29 And these things will be for a prescription and rule for you throughout your generations in all your staying places.

Numbers 35:30 “If anyone kills a throat, the murderer will be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no throat will be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

Numbers 35:31 Moreover, you will accept no ransom for the throat of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he will be put to death.

Numbers 35:32 And you will accept no ransom for him who has run away to his city of refuge, that he may return to stay in the land before the death of the high priest.

Numbers 35:33 You will not pollute the land in which you live because blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

Numbers 35:34 You will not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I stay, because I Yahveh stay in the midst of the people of Israel.”

Numbers 35 quotes:

“… the Levites were not to own the towns, but only to live in them. They were perhaps also not to be the sole residents in these towns, since passages like Lev. 25:32-35 speak only of the Levites’ redemption of houses in these towns, not the towns themselves.”

Ashley Timothy R. The Book of Numbers. Eerdmans 1993. p. 645.

” The lawgiver thus found in Israel the law of retribution in conjunction with the ancient tribal organization, and he had to take that which existed as his starting point. But God’s intention for Israel was its development into a people in which all parts functioned harmoniously; this included centralized authority, i.e. its development into an ordered state.”

Noordtzij, A. Numbers. Zondervan Pub. House, 1983. p. 298.

“Another section of case-law made the refugee cities available for aliens who had killed someone accidentally. It also makes a differentiation between manslaughter, where the death of the victim was not premediated, and murder, where the victim dies as a result of malice aforethought.”

Harrison, R.K. The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary: Numbers. Moody Press. 1990. p. 419.

“There has been considerable discussion why the high priest’s death plays a part in these legal provisions. In God’s mercy and sovereignty, it may indicate, for the offender, the commencement of a new era.”

Brown Raymond. The Message of Numbers : Journey to the Promised Land. InterVarsity Press 2002. p. 300.

“There is a sense in which God cannot afford a strong concentration of His servants in one place, when a whole land, and a whole people, have to be served in the gospel.”

Philip James and Lloyd John Ogilvie. Numbers. Thomas Nelson 1987. p. 318.

“The Levites are associated with issues of crossing and negotiating boundaries. This case involves boundaries between purity and impurity of the land. But the Levitical cities of refuge also wrestle with the boundary between murder and manslaughter in the borderline cases of unintentional killing.”

Olson, Dennis T. Numbers. John Knox Press. p. 190.