“These were the cities designated for all the people of Israel and for the stranger sojourning among them, that anyone who killed a person without intent could flee there, so that he might not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, till he stood before the congregation.”
— Joshua 20:9
Context & Key Themes
The land is distributed. The tribes are in their territories. And now God speaks one final structural command before the settlement of the nation is complete: designate the cities of refuge. This institution — first established in principle in Numbers, commanded again in Deuteronomy, now brought to physical reality in the land — is one of the most merciful provisions in all of Israelite law. It creates protected space between the moment of accidental death and the moment of justice, ensuring that vengeance cannot move faster than truth. Chapter 20 is brief but carries the weight of everything the law has said about the sanctity of human life.
Summary
The Lord tells Joshua to designate the cities of refuge as He commanded through Moses. Any person who kills someone unintentionally — without premeditation, without malice, in an accident — may flee to one of these cities. When they arrive, they are to state their case at the city gate to the elders. The elders must receive them and give them a place to live in the city. If the avenger of blood pursues them, the elders must not hand them over — because the death was unintentional, not the product of hatred or prior hostility.
The person remains in the city until they stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. After the high priest dies, the manslayer may return to his own city and home. The high priest’s death functions as a form of communal atonement — a legal resolution that allows the manslayer to re-enter ordinary life without the threat of vengeance following him.
Six cities are designated: three west of the Jordan — Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. Three east of the Jordan — Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead for Gad, and Golan in Bashan for Manasseh. Distributed across the full geographic breadth of the nation so that no one is too far to reach safety in time of need.
Reflection
The cities of refuge are designed for one specific situation: a death that was real but was not murder. The person who killed accidentally carries the weight of that death. The family of the deceased carries the grief and the ancient obligation of the blood avenger. The city of refuge stands between these two realities and says: wait. Not every death is the same. The truth must be heard before the consequence falls.
The provision that the manslayer may go home after the death of the high priest is one of the more theologically layered details in the chapter. The high priest’s death serves as the event that resolves the legal tension — not a pardon exactly, but a closure. The writer of Hebrews will pick up this thread and apply it directly to Christ: we who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us, behind the veil, where our forerunner has entered for us. The cities of refuge and their priestly resolution become, in retrospect, a picture of the one whose death alone resolves the debt that stands between us and the life we were meant to live.
The extension of the refuge cities to sojourners — foreigners living among Israel — is noted in the final verse as deliberate and explicit. The mercy built into this institution is not reserved for the covenant people alone. Any person who accidentally kills another may flee. Any person may be received at the gate. The justice of God’s law extends to those who are not yet His own people. That too is a pattern that runs forward through the whole of scripture.