Joshua 20

Well I am back.

Sorry if you have missed me but I have been working my arse off until I went on holiday a week or so ago. So hopefully refreshed, we begin again

So there was me looking forwards to something I could get my teeth into and what have i found, A slight expansion of Moses idea, offering a theoretical "sanctuary" from vengeance in the event of accidental deaths.

¹The LORD also spake unto Joshua, saying,

²Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:

³That the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.

I got to ask.....At that time how do you unwittingly kill someone and be unaware of it ?

"I was cleaning my spear and it went off "????

Ok times haven't changed that much I suppose a brawl where one party suffers a serious injury and later dies

⁴And when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.

⁵And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime.

⁶And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled.

So if you do accidentally kill someone try and flee to a city where the high preist is young and healthy or your sanctury may be short lived.

⁷And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.

⁸And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.

⁹These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation.