Joshua 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

God tells Joshua to set apart the cities of refuge that he had commanded through Moses. A person who kills someone by accident can run to one of these cities, state his case to the elders at the city gate, and be protected from the avenger of blood until he is tried before the assembly. He stays in the city until the death of the high priest of that time, and then may go home. Six cities are named, three west of the Jordan and three east of it, and they serve Israelites and foreigners living among them alike.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • The LORD spoke to Joshua.
   • The LORD's speech to Joshua was introduced as words to be said.
2. 20:2
   • The LORD told Joshua to speak to the children of Israel.
   • The LORD commanded that they designate for themselves the cities of refuge.
   • The LORD said he had spoken to them about these cities through Moses.
3. 20:3
   • The cities are for a manslayer to flee to.
   • The manslayer in view is one who kills a person by mistake, without intending it.
   • The cities shall serve as a refuge from the avenger of blood.
4. 20:4
   • The one who flees shall go to one of these cities.
   • He shall stand at the entrance of the city gate.
   • He shall state his case in the hearing of the elders of that city.
   • The elders shall take him into the city to themselves.
   • They shall give him a place.
   • He shall dwell among them.
5. 20:5
   • The avenger of blood may pursue after him.
   • If the avenger pursues, they shall not hand the manslayer over into his hand.
   • The reason is that he struck his neighbor without knowledge.
   • The reason is that he did not hate him previously.
6. 20:6
   • He shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment.
   • He shall dwell in that city until the death of the high priest who is in office in those days.
   • After that the manslayer shall return.
   • He shall come to his own city and to his own house.
   • The city he returns to is the city from which he fled.
7. 20:7
   • They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali.
   • They set apart Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim.
   • They set apart Kiriath-arba in the hill country of Judah.
   • Kiriath-arba is Hebron.
8. 20:8
   • Beyond the Jordan, east of Jericho, they assigned certain cities.
   • They assigned Bezer in the wilderness, on the plateau, from the tribe of Reuben.
   • They assigned Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad.
   • They assigned Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.
9. 20:9
   • These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel.
   • These cities were also appointed for the foreigner residing among them.
   • Anyone who kills a person by mistake might flee there.
   • Such a person would not die by the hand of the avenger of blood.
   • He would not so die until he stood before the congregation.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

The LORD in big letters stands for God's own special name. Joshua was the leader of God's people at this time.

20:2

The cities of refuge were six towns set aside in advance as places where a person who had killed someone accidentally could be safe from the dead person's family. The instructions Joshua is being reminded of are in Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19.

20:3

The "avenger of blood" (Hebrew *go'el ha-dam*, "redeemer of blood") was not a private vigilante but the nearest male relative of the person killed, who carried a recognized family duty to pursue the killer. The same word *go'el* is used for the relative who buys back family land or frees a relative from debt. The refuge cities did not abolish this role; they interrupted it long enough for a case to be heard.

20:4

The gateway of a walled town was its public square: a covered space with benches where business was transacted and legal disputes were settled in the open. The "elders" were the heads of the town's leading families, who acted as its judges. Standing at the gate and stating his case is the formal act of applying for asylum, not casual conversation.

20:5

"Hated him not beforetime" means he had no grudge against the man before this happened. Prior hostility was the legal test for intent: if the two had been enemies, the death was treated as murder, and the city gave no protection. Numbers 35 gives examples of both, such as an axe head flying off its handle (accident) against lying in wait for someone (murder).

20:6

Two separate things had to happen. First, a trial before "the assembly", the community court, which decided whether the killing really was accidental or was in fact murder. If it was murder, the refuge city gave him no protection. Second, even after being cleared, he had to stay inside the city until the serving high priest died; only then could he go home safely. The high priest was the chief religious official of the whole nation, and his death marked the end of an era in a way that released those confined in the refuge cities.

20:7

"Hill country" is the central mountain ridge running north to south through the land; each tribe's stretch of it is named after that tribe. Kirjath-arba means "town of Arba," its older Canaanite name; Hebron was the name in use later. These three cities are west of the Jordan River and roughly evenly spaced north, center, and south, so that no one was more than about a day's journey from one.

20:8

These three are on the east bank of the Jordan, where two and a half tribes had settled. "The flat highland" translates Hebrew *mishor*, the level tableland east of the Dead Sea. Gilead is the hilly region east of the Jordan's middle stretch; Bashan is the fertile plateau further north, east of the Sea of Galilee.

20:9

"Foreigner living among them" translates a word for a resident outsider, someone of non-Israelite origin who had settled permanently in the land rather than a traveler passing through. The point being made is that the protection covered them on the same terms as Israelites.