Thoughts on Numbers 35

Today’s reading: Numbers 35; 2 John

There’s an easy to miss line at the end of Numbers 35 which at first blush sounds a little odd, but actually makes a lot of sense with some of the themes we have been tracking though Exodus and Leviticus so far.

The cities of refuge are a judicial provision for the Israelites. If you were guilty of murder you were to be put to death, but if you killed someone on accident, you could flee to a city of refuge and could not be put to death for the killing. At the end of Numbers 35 it explicitly notes that no ransom shall be accepted for the life of a murderer, but they shall necessarily be put to death. And this makes sense, that you wouldn’t want to leave the door open to pervert justice by allowing something like a rich person committing (or sponsoring) murder and escaping the consequences simply by paying off a ransom. But then there is also the explicit command to not accept a ransom to allow someone to return from a city of refuge before the death of the high priest, and that’s the piece that struck me as odd at first blush.

Think about it, if the city of refuge is a provision to protect the innocent person, is there really any justice to pervert in this? I guess you could make the case that if someone desires to return home from the city of refuge early the avenger of blood could charge an exorbitant ransom for the accidental killer’s safe return, but it just seems like an odd thing to disallow if the person is truly innocent. So why would this be disallowed? 

This then leads us to another question, and that is why does the innocent person have to remain in the city of refuge in the first place? Couldn’t they flee there until it is determined that they are not guilty of murder at which point they could return home? Why continue to punish the person after they have been determined to be innocent by not allowing them to return home?

Ultimately the answer is that, while the cities of refuge were a judicial provision for the Israelites, they were not merely a judicial provision. We have talked a number of times through our reading in Exodus and Leviticus about the fact that if Israel is going to be Yahweh’s domain, there are certain things that do and do not belong, one of the biggest of which that doesn’t belong being death. Yahweh is the author of life, and death only came into the world as a result of direct rebellion against Him. From the beginning He did not design or intend death, and it has no place in His domain or among His people. We talked about this at length in regard to all the regulations and offerings required for even touching a dead body, so how much more so for the person who kills someone else?

The reason you could not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer was not just to avoid perversion of justice, but was also because life is sacred and a taker of life could not be allowed to continue to live among God’s people. The cities of refuge were a way to protect Israel from the defilement of death while also not punishing an innocent person. The person who took a life, even accidentally, was still a taker of life, and their presence in Israel defiled God’s domain. So the cities of refuge kept that defilement contained so that the rest of Israel was not defiled by their presence. This is why you could not accept a ransom to allow the person guilty of accidentally killing someone to leave the city of refuge early. It was not just up to the avenger of blood to decide they were not going to kill the person, but that person had to remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest at which point they were “atoned” for and were no longer a contamination to Israel.

This might seem “unfair” to us, because the death was an accident, and so we think the person should not be punished for it, but we have to remember that we do not see things they way they did back then. We are talking now about cosmic geography and the domain of a deity. What is or isn’t allowed in that deity’s domain is essentially an object lesson about that god. This is why, as we have discussed before, even something like menstruation or certain illnesses would make you unclean and exclude you from participation in ritual services. That exclusion was not a punishment of the individual, but a protection of sacred space from defilement by things that are contrary to the person, nature, or desire of Yahweh.

So in that sense, the accidental killer being confined to the city of refuge was really a blessing as the alternative would have been either to be expelled fully from Israel, or to be killed themself for having spilled human blood. Yahweh, in His mercy, makes a way for people in this unfortunate position to continue to live among His people without the land becoming polluted, in order that His presence may continue to dwell among them.