Numbers35chapter 35

Numbers 35:1-2

These last chapters are all dated to one place, the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, the formula that stands at 22:1, 26:3 and 33:50 and closes the book at 36:13. Levi had been given no portion of the land at 18:20, and the tribe now receives forty-eight towns set inside the portions of the others. Genesis 49:7 had said of Levi, I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel, and Matthew Henry reads the scattering here as a posting through the whole country rather than a loss.

Numbers 35:3-5

The suburbs are pasture ground, the Hebrew migrash, given for cattle and goods, so the Levites hold grazing without holding a territory. Verse 4 measures a thousand cubits out from the wall and verse 5 measures two thousand on each of the four sides, and readers have taken the difference in two ways. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the first as the depth of the suburb from the wall and the second as a line drawn from its outer edge, while John Gill reports the Jewish writers giving the first thousand to cattle and goods and the further two thousand to gardens, fields and vineyards.

Numbers 35:6-8

Six of the forty-eight are cities of refuge and forty-two are not, and verse 8 sets the quota by size, from them that have many ye shall give many. Joshua 21 records the count being made good tribe by tribe, and Albert Barnes notes that Judah and Simeon together gave nine, Naphtali gave three, and the rest gave four apiece. The man who has taken a life is sheltered in a town belonging to the one tribe that owns no country of its own.

Numbers 35:9-11

A second speech opens and it legislates for a country Israel has not entered, when ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan. The protection is fenced by two words, at unawares, which is the category of the sin of ignorance at Leviticus 4:2, so the city covers the accident and never the deed. Adam Clarke sets this beside the Greek and Roman asylum and the sanctuary altars of later centuries, which sheltered whoever reached them, and marks that difference as what makes these six cities a law rather than a hiding place.

Numbers 35:12-13

The avenger is the goel, the same word and the same office as the kinsman who buys back a poor brother's field at Leviticus 25:25 and the near kinsman of Ruth 3:12. The man whose duty is to redeem a family's land is the man whose duty is to answer for its blood. Verse 12 also states what the city is for, that the manslayer die not until he stand before the congregation in judgment, so the gate buys him a hearing and no more than that.

Numbers 35:14-15

Three cities east of Jordan and three in Canaan, and Moses severs the eastern three himself at Deuteronomy 4:41-43, Bezer, Ramoth and Golan, before he dies. Joshua 20:7-8 names the western three, Kedesh, Shechem and Hebron, so the six stand on record twice. Verse 15 opens all six to the stranger and the sojourner on the same terms as the Israelite, and Matthew Henry reads that provision as the pattern of Christ receiving Greek and Jew alike.

Numbers 35:16-18

Three instruments are named, iron, stone and wood, and the wording is not the same for all three. Iron carries no qualifier, while the stone and the wooden weapon are each described as wherewith he may die, since a stone or a stick may be in a man's hand for a hundred harmless reasons and a blade may not. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the whole list as evidence of a settled purpose, and John Gill takes the choice of instrument as showing the design of the man who chose it.

Numbers 35:19-21

Having weighed the weapon, the law turns to the mind, and verses 20 and 21 name hatred, lying in wait and enmity as what makes a blow murder. Verse 19 puts the execution in the hand of the revenger of blood himself, and readers divide over whether that is a permission granted to the kinsman or an office he discharges once sentence has been passed. Matthew Henry reports the Chaldee taking it as execution only after the court has condemned the man, and he leaves the plain sense of the verse standing beside that reading.

Numbers 35:22-24

The accidental case is drawn with care, thrust suddenly, cast upon him seeing him not, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm. Verse 24 puts the decision with the congregation, judging between the slayer and the revenger of blood, so the family that has lost a man does not weigh its own case. John Gill takes the congregation here as the court sitting to hear both sides, and Joshua 20:4 has the fugitive declaring his cause to the elders in the gate before the city takes him in.

Numbers 35:25

The term is fixed to one event, the death of the high priest which was anointed with the holy oil. No fine shortens it, no span of years completes it and no conduct earns it, so another man's death is the only key that opens the city. Adam Clarke and Matthew Henry both read that of Christ, Clarke writing at verse 32 that no sinner recovers his forfeited inheritance until the great high priest has died for his offences. The New Testament nowhere states the link, and Hebrews, which works through the priesthood at length, does not use this law.

Numbers 35:26-28

Protection has a boundary and the manslayer keeps inside it or loses it, and John Gill reports the Jewish writers counting the measured suburbs as part of the refuge. Verse 28 states the term a second time within four verses, which is where the weight of the passage sits. What the death of the high priest gives back is named as well, the land of his possession, so the release restores property and not only liberty.

Numbers 35:29-30

The statute is tied to no one place, throughout your generations in all your dwellings, so a trial for blood runs by the same rule in every town. Verse 30 sets the standard of proof, that a murderer dies by the mouth of witnesses and that one witness cannot bring any man to death. Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15 repeat the rule and the New Testament carries it forward at Matthew 18:16, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 5:19 and Hebrews 10:28. Adam Clarke gives its practical ground, that one man may be mistaken or malicious and that two separate examinations expose the difference.

Numbers 35:31-32

Two payments are forbidden in two verses, one for the murderer's life and one for the manslayer's exile. The word rendered satisfaction is kopher, the ransom that Exodus 21:30 does allow where an ox has gored a man, which Albert Barnes points out, so the law prices some losses and refuses to price this one. Verse 32 closes the other door, since money cannot buy the fugitive home a single day early either.

Numbers 35:33-34

Blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of it but by the blood of him that shed it, which is Genesis 9:6 stated as a property of the ground itself. Genesis 4:10-11 had already put it that way, the ground opening its mouth to receive Abel's blood and the blood crying out of it. Verse 34 gives the reason for the whole chapter in one clause, wherein I dwell, so the law rests on who lives in the country rather than on public order. Deuteronomy 21:1-9 takes up the case this verse leaves standing, a body found and the killer unknown, and gives a rite for a land that cannot reach the man.