What’s with the Cities of Refuge?

Reading through the Old Testament, there are numerous places where the modern reader walks away puzzled. The Bible is eternally relevant, but sometimes it takes some digging to get that relevance. One such example is something that shows up repeatedly throughout the first few books of the Bible: cities of refuge. How exactly do these cities work? Why did God set them up? And why did ancient Israel solve the problem of murder this way?

Instructions for these cities show up in Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19, then these cities are assigned in Joshua 20. That’s a decent amount of attention to something that makes very little sense in our modern context. Yet if we imagine the original culture in which these cities appeared, and seek to understand why they were set up in the first place, there is a lot we can learn from this ancient legal system.

What Were Cities of Refuge?

In ancient times, murder and manslaughter were handled quite differently than they are today. A brief refresher on terms: murder is the intentional taking of another’s life, whereas manslaughter is the unintentional taking of another life. The American judicial system makes a distinction between these two based on intention. While manslaughter might result in a guilty verdict and some form of restitution or punishment, murder is treated much more harshly. If your actions lead to the death of another human, it matters a lot if you were trying to end their life or if it was an accident.

This distinction is also found in the Bible’s concept of cities of refuge. In ancient Israel, if you killed someone then a close relative, called the avenger of blood, would try to kill you in return. If you killed someone by accident, then you could flee to a city of refuge and stand trial. The avenger of blood would have the chance to make his case against you, and the city would decide if the death was intentional or accidental. If you were guilty, you would be handed over to the avenger of blood. If you were innocent, you could continue living in the city of refuge.

Once you were living in a city of refuge, though, you needed to stay there. If you left for any reason, and the avenger of blood found you, he could kill you. The only exception is that once the high priest died, you could then go home. Otherwise, you needed to settle down in the city because you would need to live there if you wanted to be safe. While this might all seem very odd to us, there are some good reasons for these seemingly strange rituals.

What Led to the Cities of Refuge?

The cities of refuge play into a large theme in the Bible: the awful injustice of murder. After the first murder in the Bible, God tells Cain that the ground itself is crying out against him (Genesis 4:10). Leading up the flood, the world was filled with incredible violence (Genesis 6:11), so that after the flood God allows for violence to be curbed by violence. God states that if a man kills a man, then he should be killed by a man (Genesis 9:6). This is why Paul states that the government “bears the sword” (Romans 13:4). After the flood, capital punishment of murder was God-ordained.

But how was this to be carried out? There were no guillotines, firing squads, electric chair, or lethal injection. Killing someone was a grisly endeavor that involved a sword or a blunt object. No one individual was given the job of “executioner” who was responsible for killing the guilty party. So a family member stepped up and did the job.

Of course, this was bound to happen anyway. In the ancient world, if you kill my brother, father, or son, then I will kill you if I can. In fact, this very thing does often happen and lead to feuds and wars that cause great devastation, whether it’s the Montagues and the Capulets, the Hatfields and McCoys, or the Crips and the Bloods. Reciprocal murder is a never ending spiral of violence. This is why societies must deal with murder and manslaughter in ways that take both crimes seriously.

The ancient solution in Israel was to allow the avenger of blood to enforce justice, but only if there was a genuine murder. Yet the solution for manslaughter also took that offense seriously, because a death had still occurred. While accidental, it didn’t seem right that someone should take a life and then go on as though nothing happened. Living in a city of refuge would change your life, which is only fair, but you would be able to keep your life. And yet there was also hope that this mistake didn’t have to forever define you and your legacy. Eventually, at the death of the high priest, you would be able to return to your inheritance.

Although this system might seem strange to us, it dealt with the problem of murder and manslaughter for the ancient people who followed these laws. This system restrained the violent, bloodthirsty anger that could lead to the unraveling of a civilization, while also recognizing that a great evil had occurred and must be dealt with. The solution for accidental death still took that death seriously, but in a way that didn’t leave people hopeless.

What Can We Learn from the Cities of Refuge?

Americans are fascinated by murder. Sherlock Holmes. Crime shows. Famous trials. In fact, the last few weeks in America have seen much attention given to the trial of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk. Why is this? Because we understand that when a murder has occurred, something is desperately wrong and needs to be fixed. The biblical description of the blood crying out from the ground is honestly a pretty good way of graphically describing the effect of murder. When someone has died, a great wrong has been committed, and those nearest to them feel the urge to have it addressed. When it isn’t, it’s as if the whole land has been polluted (Numbers 35:33).

Yet this ancient custom not only reminds us of the enduring injustice of murder, but it also depicts for us the wonderful work of Christ. Just as the one guilty of manslaughter could run to the cities of refuge for safety, so those guilty in their sins can run to Jesus for salvation from sin. Yet in an almost ironic twist, it is the unjust murder of Jesus that gives us this deliverance. In Hebrews, we are reminded that Jesus’ blood speaks better things than Abel’s blood (Hebrews 12:24). That is because Abel’s blood calls out for justice, whereas Jesus’ blood calls out for mercy and forgiveness. Cities of refuge may have given people innocent of murder safety and hope, but only Jesus can give people guilty of all kinds of sin salvation and forgiveness.