Cities of Refuge
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Cities of Refuge
Cities of Refuge
As we dive back in to the book of Deuteronomy, we come to a short passage this morning that I had to decide what to do with. The text this morning is a brief description of Moses setting apart three cities of refuge. The topic will come up again in Deuteronomy 19, should we make it there some day, and also is elaborated on in Numbers 35. So my decision was whether to handle this text now or later when we get to the other chapter, and I have chosen to exposit it now, since I think it is very instructive to us, not only about how we should view law and justice, but also how we as the church can respond and live out the principles behind this concept of Cities of Refuge.
The topic of justice is never far from our minds. We want to be treated justly, we want to see justice done, whether on our jobs, or at school, or in the legal system, we want to see justice done. The church ought to stand for justice, biblical justice. But when you throw out the term justice today, it can be almost a trigger to some, because the word justice has come to mean different things to different people.
We hear words like social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, and so on. Some people are uncomfortable with where some churches have gone with the topic of justice. But I do believe that God calls his people to be those who seek true justice, in the biblical sense. We should care about it, and when we have opportunities, we should be proponents of justice.
The topic of justice is perhaps most pressing when a human being has been killed by another, and this is where our topic of cities of refuge come in. I’m going to read the relevant passages and then we are going to seek what this means in two broad categories: First, how the biblical principles of cities of refuge may apply to law and justice in our world today, and second, how the church is to be a place of refuge. And we will be challenged by scripture to examine our own hearts to see if we are thinking and living biblically in this respect.
Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan, that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life: Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
“The cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be forty-eight, with their pasturelands. And as for the cities that you shall give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits, shall give of its cities to the Levites.”
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. And the cities that you give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.
“But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. And if he struck him down with a stone tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. Or if he struck him down with a wooden tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. And if he pushed him out of hatred or hurled something at him, lying in wait, so that he died, or in enmity struck him down with his hand, so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.
“But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait 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, then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these rules. And the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he had fled, and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the boundaries of his city of refuge to which he fled, and the avenger of blood finds him outside the boundaries of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. For he must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest, but after the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession. And these things shall be for a statute and rule for you throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.
“If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for 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. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”
Indeed there is a lot here for us to consider. In fact, there was certainly the potential here to make this 2-3 sermons, but we will try to get through it all this morning. There is a passage I didn’t read, and you can research it on your own, in Deuteronomy 19:1-13, but since this passage is very similar to the Numbers passage, I will just leave that for you to read on your own, and perhaps when we get to that part of Deuteronomy, we will touch on this subject again.
The first thing to say about the cities of refuge is that they were included in the cities that were allotted to the Levites. The Levites you may recall were to be the priestly tribe, responsible to God and to the people to stand in the gap, to maintain the temples, to perform the sacrifices, and so on. They were also responsible to maintain the teaching and explaining of the law, to make sure the people knew it and understood it, and obeyed it. The Levites, unlike the other tribes of Israel, did not have a parcel of land to call their own, but instead were given cities. These cities were scattered throughout Israel.
The Levites being scattered was part of the prophecy of Jacob over his sons. Gen49.5-7
“Simeon and Levi are brothers;
weapons of violence are their swords.
Let my soul come not into their council;
O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men,
and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob
and scatter them in Israel.
So among the blessings Jacob gave to his sons, he singles out Simeon and Levi, and says they will be divided and scattered in Israel. Why? Because they had committed murder. When their sister Dinah had been defiled, they took the law into their own hands and killed not onky the man who was guilty, but also all the males of his tribe. So Jacob, on his deathbed, said that the tribes of Simeon and Levi would be scattered.
Levi had been part of murder, now the tribe of Levi would be responsible to see that justice was served both to the murderer and also to the one who killed without hateful intent. The Levites were given 48 cities and 6 of them were to be designated cities of refuge. These cities were to have well-maintained roads, and clear signs to help the one fleeing to the cites for refuge to find it.
What were these cities all about? “that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there.” But it seems to me by studying this passage that it was also a place of refuge for one who killed, but there was not more than 1 witness. We will talk about that part in a bit as well.
So you heard some of the examples of what is considered a manslayer. In today’s terminology, we may substitute the word manslaughter here. It is when someone is killed by someone else, but it was not on purpose or with murderous intent. One of the most common examples we may see in our time is traffic accidents. If someone causes an accident they are at fault at, but there was not intent to kill, they may be charged with manslaughter. But if you run someone over and it was on purpose and with motive, you will be charged with murder.
Or, if someone is out hunting, and they shoot at an animal, but the bullet travels and kills a person, they may be guilty of manslaughter, but if someone walks into a church or a school or a bank and shoots someone dead, they are guilty of murder.
Now, in the ancient world, it would be considered the responsibility of a close family member to avenge the death, especially if it was clearly murder. Now, it is not condoned anywhere in scripture to do this, but it was allowed and so if a person killed a murderer, and it was proven the person they killed was a murderer, then they themselves would not be guilty of murder, but rather would be seen as acting for the community in purifying the land of the murder.
One problem with this is that it could come about that the vengeance happened often before any trial happened. Just like in the westerns, the cry to string him up, there was often a desire on people to have immediate justice, but when people demand quick convictions, often the innocent can be punished, so the cities of refuge were a way to slow down this process.
One interesting part of this was that it was the one who committed the killing who needed to go to the city of refuge. There, he would appeal to the elders of that city, and they were obligated by God to provide refugee status until a trial could be conducted. If the trial were conducted and it was determined the killing was unintentional, the guilty one would be confined to the city and protected there by the city leaders. If it was determined it was a murder, and not a manslaughter, then the punishment would be death, and this punishment was often carried out by a family member, who was known as the avenger of blood.
It is interesting to note that in scripture, the same word used to mean avenger of blood here is used in places such as the book of Ruth, but there it means kinsman-redeemer. The concept of relatives looking out for each other was very strong in that ancient society.
We also see, and I covered this topic on Mother’s Day, that God’s people are strongly pro-life. Now, people have said that if you claim to be pro-life, you would be against the death penalty, but this is actually the opposite of what scripture tells us. Scripture tells us that life is so valuable that when a murder takes place, the land is polluted. Numbers35.33-34
You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for 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. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”
In other words, if there is a clear case of murder, the death penalty was required, not because they loved death, but because God loves life. I showed on Mother’s day the many passages of scripture that remind us that each human bears the image of God and therefore all life is sacred. So allowing murder to go unchecked is polluting the land.
It is very important to pay attention though, to this important component of biblical justice: No one could be put to death without witnesses. 2 or more witnesses had to speak on the matter. Now, this was a pretty straight forward thing in those days. Eyewitnesses had to have eyes, and had to report on something they saw. Today, all sorts of evidences are used to convict people. DNA evidence, phone logs, paperwork, video, and other means are used in convicting the guilty. We must remember though, when it comes to the death penalty, the bible is clear that no one is to be put to death except if there are 2-3 or more witnesses.
So what did they do with those who were guilty, but there was no witnesses? Or if there was only one witness? They were protected in the city of refuge, but if they left the city, the relative of their victim, the avenger of blood, could kill them with impunity. So the city of refuge really became a prison. There were no guards, no one forcing the person to stay, except the fear of leaving the city and being found by the avenger of blood.
Now we can understand perhaps why there is included in the ten commandments, the command to not bear false witness against another. If you said you were a witness to a crime that did not happen, the punishment was that you would receive the punishment the one you accused would have received.
If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.
So if you commit perjury by saying someone else committed murder, and the penalty for murder was death, what would happen to you? You would be put to death. It seems like a pretty good way to reduce perjury. What happens to people today who commit perjury? Usually nothing. Sometimes a slap on the wrist.
The one who killed and it was found to be manslaughter had their life saved, but lost their freedom, since they were confined to the city. But their sentence was set in that the time of their confinement to the city of refuge was until the high priest died. You see, blood had to be atoned for. When the murderer was put to death, his death atoned for the blood he had shed. And for the man slayer, the accidental death he caused was atoned for by the death of the high priest.
There must always be atonement for sin, and particularly, because God is so pro-life, there had to be blood atonement for every human death that was caused by another person. You can imagine how the one confined to the city of refuge for 20 years would be envious of the one who was there only a month before the high priest died. In fact, I found out an interesting part of this history, that the mother of the high priest would go from city of refuge to city of refuge, bringing gifts and food and comfort items to those who were refugees from the avenger of blood. Why did she do this? So that they would not pray for the high priest to die. In fact, she hoped that her gifts would be so appreciated that they would pray for long life for the high priest.
I want to summarize the legal part, and then move to the part where it applies to the church. Murder was a death penalty offense because life is so valuable. The one who killed another without malice needed a place of safety, yet they still had to pay for their error by being confined to the city of refuge. A murderer was only to be put to death on the testimony of 2-3 witnesses. If there were no witnesses, the death penalty could not be applied. All killings had to be atoned for. The murder was atoned for when the death penalty was carried out on the murderer. For all others, the dead were atoned for by the death of the high priest.
Throughout history, this concept has often been applied to the church. You may remember from literature or movies, that a person was safe inside the church. The law could not come in. Jean Val Jean, the hero of Les Miserables, spent time in a church, protected from the lawman who hunted him. I wouldn’t recommend that today. If you are guilty of a crime and the police are chasing you, don’t swing on in to Oasis Church and expect you will be safe, because the PBCSO will come right in after you.
Nevertheless, the church is to be a place of refuge. It is a place of refuge. The grace is abundant here. Those who have received grace are to supply others with grace as well. The tribe of Levi had to understand grace. Levi had been guilty of murder, and yet did not get the death penalty. However, his tribe was scattered and spread out across Israel in the cities. And in the city of refuge, each time a refugee came, they should have remembered that grace they had received, and life through grace.
Each time they offered a place of sanctuary to the one fleeing the avenger of blood, they ought to have remembered the grace they themselves had recieved. And every time the current High Priest died, and they say the joy of those being released without any further fear of the avenger of death, they must have recognized that great gift that atonement was. The death of the High Priest atoned for every accidental death.
So the church should be reminded, whenever another great sinner comes through the doors, that we received grace, and ought to show grace to others. If you have been in the church for decades, perhaps in some way you suffered for Jesus, do not look down on the one who is newly arrived, because the same grace that received you can receive them. I don’t know if we have any murderers or man slayers here. In my last church, one of the finest examples of a Christian man I have known had been a man slayer. He got into a fight at a bar and killed a man.
He served time in a California prison, and later on, he learned about the Great High Priest who had died for his freedom. But our great high priest covers for more than murders, He can atone for every sin. In those days, whether there was 1 person fleeing the avenger of death or 1,000 or more, the death of one man, the High Priest, atoned for them all.
But our Great High Priest, Jesus, is better. Hebrews4.14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The church, even more than the cities of refuge, is the place for grace and mercy today. In the church, just as in the city of refuge, there is a love for the sinner, a desire to offer a place of rest. In the church, just as in the city of refuge, is a desire for justice. We ought to take the biblical principles of justice and work together to apply them in our own context.
There is one more concept towards the end of Numbers 35: there was to be no ransom for the life of a murderer. No one could buy the murderer’s life. He must be put to death. While other legal issues could be settled by restitution, murder was not included. To accept money in place of atonement through blood was to pollute the land. The land would be defiled if they did not follow these instructions.
Throughout Church History there have been people who consider themselves Christ-followers who care little to nothing about actually living out the life of holiness that Christ commands of us. They don’t want to study the Bible too hard because it may make them change how they are living. Or they want to pinch the words of scripture to squeeze out of them justification for sinful living or sinful thinking.
We should be reminded today of the seriousness of sin. While our context was primarily about killings, we can see that God takes very seriously our obedience. The danger is looking at a passage like ours today and deciding it doesn’t apply to us, either because we are not murderers, or because we don’t need cities of refuge because we have lawyers and courts.
The reality is, though, that we are all guilty. We bear the weight of the sin of murder in the fact that we treat the value of life so lightly. And more than that, we are part of the fallen race of mankind. In Adam, we all sinned. So while we are accountable to God for our individual sins, we also bear a share in the human problem, because all of us were born into sin. But we are not guilty of murder, some might insist! I refuse to be held accountable for society!
If that is you position, and you only want to be held accountable for your own wickedness, test yourself against the commandments and see how you are doing. But the commandments are about actions, and Jesus pointed out that the heart determines even more. So if you refuse to acknowledge your part in this sinful race of humans, let me ask you this: Have you ever been angry with another person? Have you ever insulted someone? Have you ever said to someone, “You fool!”?
Then according to Jesus you are guilty, even if you never actually killed somoene.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
You see, if the audio of our whole lives is stored in the cloud, the evidence abounds that we are guilty. And if the evidence in our hearts, the words we never spoke but thought, were exposed to the light, the guilt would overwhelm us. So that we may say with Paul, Rom7:24-25
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, and even when you sin, you continue to serve Christ by confessing, and growing, and moving forward. You see, you who are in Christ are not in the flesh anymore.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
And so this church must seek to be a city of refuge for all the guilty who would run for protection through our doors. May we, like the Levites, be willing and ready to surround the guilty who enter here, knowing that their sin can be atoned for, just as ours was, because the death of our Great High Priest is sufficient to atone for all sin.
I mentioned earlier that the cities of refuge had to have well-paved roads so that the one fleeing the avenger of death could get there quickly. There had to be clear, and easily readable road signs, pointing them to the place of refuge. Well, our church has a nice road, and a nice sign, but I submit to you this morning that you are the road and you are the sign, that can bring people here to this place of refuge. You are the ones who see those on the road, looking for the place of refuge, and you are given this privilege to be among those pointing people towards the place of refuge.
The truth of a matter depended on the testimony of two witnesses. Some believe that this is why Jesus sent the disciples out in twos to share the gospel with others. Will you testify to this gospel? Will you find the ones fleeing on the road and point them towards the place of refuge? You see, it isn’t the building that is the place of refuge, it is the confession of the church. May we be those who live in appreciation of the grace we have recieved, and may we be those delighted to share that grace with others who desperately need it.