Regulations for Cities of Refuge and Manslayers

Regulations for Cities of Refuge and Manslayers establish a legal distinction between murder and accidental killing, providing sanctuary for the latter while preserving judgment for the community. Their six refuge cities restrain immediate vengeance, but protection depends on the circumstances of the death, a public determination of responsibility, and the manslayer’s remaining within the designated city until the high priest’s death.

Cities and Their Provision

The regulations place the cities of refuge within a broader provision for the Levites. The people are to give them forty-eight cities in all, each with open land for livestock and other property: six cities of refuge and forty-two additional towns. The allotment is proportionate to each tribe’s inheritance, so larger tribal holdings contribute more cities and smaller ones fewer.

The six refuge cities are to serve Israelites, strangers, and resident settlers alike. Three are to lie east of the Jordan and three in Canaan. The law’s stated purpose is to give someone who has caused a death through error a place to flee, safe from the avenger of blood until the congregation hears the case.

Distinguishing Murder from Accidental Killing

The classification turns on the circumstances and apparent intent of the act. A death caused with an iron implement, a potentially lethal stone, or a wooden weapon is treated as murder; so is a death following hatred, a deliberate attack, or an act committed while lying in wait. In such cases, the avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death.

By contrast, a sudden act without enmity or a deliberate ambush may qualify as accidental killing. The congregation judges between the person who caused the death and the avenger. If the case is found to be accidental, the congregation rescues the manslayer from the avenger and returns that person to the city of refuge where sanctuary was sought.

Conditions and Limits of Refuge

Refuge is not unrestricted freedom of movement. The manslayer must remain inside the city’s boundary until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. If the manslayer leaves before then and the avenger finds and kills that person outside the boundary, the avenger incurs no bloodguilt. After the high priest dies, the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.

The law also establishes procedural safeguards and limits on substitution. A murderer may be condemned only on the testimony of witnesses; one witness alone is insufficient. No ransom may be accepted to spare a murderer liable to death, and no ransom may allow a manslayer to leave refuge before the high priest’s death.

Territorial and Covenantal Setting

Before the full system is set out, Moses designates three eastern cities: Bezer in the wilderness plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. They are intended for someone who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without prior hatred, so that the person may live.

The regulations describe bloodshed as a pollution of the land and state that the land cannot be expiated for shed blood except by the blood of the one who shed it. This concern is connected to the LORD’s presence among Israel: the people are not to defile the land in which the LORD dwells. The refuge system therefore balances the protection of an accidental killer against the demand that intentional murder be answered and judged.