We’re using this title because we had an earlier tour of them when we studied Numbers 35.
Why did God arrange for Israel’s six cities of refuge? He wanted problems resolved. Since He was the giver of life and people were made in His image, anyone who maliciously took another life forfeited his own. On the other end of the scale, minor infractions were to be resolved by paying restitution. Of course, these human arrangements were all set against the sacrifices, reminding the people that every wrong action was ultimately against God. But between capital crimes and offences that could be more easily resolved, there were serious but unintended violations. There were no police departments, certainly no FBI, to track down a fleeing murderer, so every family had a goel, a kinsman-redeemer, called “the avenger of blood” (Deut 19:6). The avenger was to see that justice was done in executing a murderer. But this chapter examines the following scenario: “when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies” (v 5). There was clear evidence that it was unintended, since they had agreed to work together. “Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him in time past” (v 4). In such cases, the man could flee to one of six cities of refuge where his case could be examined. “But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally…and he flees to one of these cities” (v 11), he must be returned to his hometown for execution. Thus the swift judgment in Israel. Alternatively, we see in our societies, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl 8:11).