Numbers 35: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

On the plains of Moab, the LORD tells Moses that Israel must give the Levites forty-eight cities to live in, with open pastureland around them, taken from each tribe in proportion to its holdings. Six of those cities are to be cities of refuge, where a person who kills someone by accident can flee and be safe from the avenger of blood until the assembly holds a trial. The chapter then draws the line between murder and accidental killing, sets the penalties for each, requires more than one witness for a death sentence, and forbids taking payment in place of a murderer's execution or to release a manslayer early.

Claim by Claim

1. 35:1
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
   • The speech took place in the plains of Moab.
   • The plains of Moab were by the Jordan near Jericho.
2. 35:2
   • The LORD told Moses to command the Israelites.
   • The Israelites are to give the Levites cities to live in.
   • The cities are to come out of the inheritance the Israelites possess.
   • The Israelites are also to give the Levites open pastureland surrounding those cities.
3. 35:3
   • The cities are for the Levites to live in.
   • The surrounding open land is for their livestock.
   • The surrounding open land is for their property.
   • The surrounding open land is for all their animals.
4. 35:4
   • The open land given to the Levites extends outward from the wall of each city.
   • That open land extends a thousand cubits all the way around.
5. 35:5
   • The Israelites are to measure two thousand cubits outside the city on the east side.
   • They are to measure two thousand cubits on the south side.
   • They are to measure two thousand cubits on the west side.
   • They are to measure two thousand cubits on the north side.
   • The city is to be in the middle of the measured area.
   • This measured area is to be the open pastureland of the cities.
6. 35:6
   • Among the cities given to the Levites there are to be six cities of refuge.
   • The six cities of refuge are appointed so that one who kills a person may flee there.
   • In addition to the six, the Israelites are to give the Levites forty-two cities.
7. 35:7
   • The total of the cities given to the Levites is forty-eight.
   • The cities are to be given together with their open pasturelands.
8. 35:8
   • The cities given are to come from the holdings of the Israelites.
   • From a tribe with much, many cities are to be taken.
   • From a tribe with little, few cities are to be taken.
   • Each tribe is to give cities to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance it receives.
9. 35:9
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
10. 35:10
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to the Israelites and say to them that they are crossing the Jordan into the land of Canaan.
11. 35:11
    • The Israelites are to designate cities for themselves.
    • These cities are to be cities of refuge for them.
    • One who kills a person unintentionally may flee to such a city.
12. 35:12
    • The cities are to serve as a refuge from the avenger of blood.
    • The one who killed is not to die before he stands before the assembly for judgment.
13. 35:13
    • Of the cities the Israelites give, six are to be cities of refuge for them.
14. 35:14
    • Three of the cities are to be given on the other side of the Jordan, outside Canaan.
    • Three of the cities are to be given in the land of Canaan.
    • These are to be cities of refuge.
15. 35:15
    • The six cities are to be a refuge for the Israelites.
    • The six cities are to be a refuge for the resident foreigner.
    • The six cities are to be a refuge for the settler living among them.
    • Anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee to them.
16. 35:16
    • If a man strikes another with an iron object and the other dies, the striker is a murderer.
    • The murderer is to be put to death.
17. 35:17
    • If a man strikes another with a hand-held stone capable of causing death and the other dies, the striker is a murderer.
    • The murderer is to be put to death.
18. 35:18
    • If a man strikes another with a hand-held wooden object capable of causing death and the other dies, the striker is a murderer.
    • The murderer is to be put to death.
19. 35:19
    • The avenger of blood himself is to put the murderer to death.
    • When the avenger of blood meets the murderer, he is to kill him.
20. 35:20
    • A man may push another out of hatred so that he dies.
    • A man may throw something at another deliberately so that he dies.
21. 35:21
    • A man may strike another with his hand out of hostility so that he dies.
    • In such cases the one who struck is to be put to death.
    • He is a murderer.
    • The avenger of blood is to kill the murderer when he meets him.
22. 35:22
    • A man may push another suddenly without hostility.
    • A man may throw any object at another without deliberate intent.
23. 35:23
    • A man may drop any stone capable of causing death on another without seeing him, so that the other dies.
    • In such a case the one who caused the death was not the dead man's enemy.
    • In such a case he was not seeking the dead man's harm.
24. 35:24
    • The assembly is to judge between the one who struck and the avenger of blood.
    • The assembly is to judge according to these ordinances.
25. 35:25
    • The assembly is to rescue the one who killed from the hand of the avenger of blood.
    • The assembly is to return him to the city of refuge to which he fled.
    • He is to live in that city until the death of the high priest.
    • The high priest was anointed with the holy oil.
26. 35:26
    • The one who killed may go outside the boundary of the city of refuge to which he fled.
27. 35:27
    • The avenger of blood may find him outside the boundary of his city of refuge.
    • The avenger of blood may kill the one who killed.
    • In that case there is no bloodguilt for the avenger.
28. 35:28
    • The one who killed was to remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest.
    • After the death of the high priest the one who killed may return to the land of his possession.
29. 35:29
    • These rules are to be a statutory ordinance for the Israelites throughout their generations.
    • These rules apply in all their dwelling places.
30. 35:30
    • Whoever kills a person is to be put to death on the testimony of witnesses.
    • A single witness is not to testify against a person to cause his death.
31. 35:31
    • No ransom is to be accepted for the life of a murderer who is guilty and deserves to die.
    • The murderer is to be put to death.
32. 35:32
    • No ransom is to be accepted for one who has fled to his city of refuge.
    • No ransom may allow him to return and live in the land before the death of the priest.
33. 35:33
    • The Israelites are not to pollute the land they are in.
    • Blood pollutes the land.
    • No atonement can be made for the land for blood shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
34. 35:34
    • The Israelites are not to defile the land they live in.
    • The LORD dwells in the midst of that land.
    • The LORD dwells among the children of Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

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

35:1

The plains of Moab were the flat land east of the Jordan River, opposite Jericho. Israel is camped there at the end of the wilderness years, about to cross the river westward into Canaan. Everything in this chapter is instruction given in advance, for a land the people do not yet occupy.

35:2

The Levites were one of Israel's twelve tribes, set apart to serve at the sanctuary. Unlike the other tribes they received no block of territory of their own, so they had to be housed inside land belonging to the others, hence this list of cities. "Suburbs" in the King James does not mean outlying housing; the Hebrew word means open grazing ground, unbuilt pasture ringing the town where animals were kept.

35:3

Open land here means pastureland: grassy ground with no buildings, where sheep, goats and cattle could graze and be kept at night.

35:4

A cubit was roughly eighteen inches (about 45 cm), the length of a forearm from elbow to fingertip. A thousand cubits is therefore something like a quarter of a mile, or 450 meters.

35:5

Verse 4 gives a belt of a thousand cubits out from the wall; verse 5 gives two thousand cubits on each side. The two figures are not reconciled in the text and ancient and modern readers have understood them differently, some take verse 5 as measuring the full width of the square (city plus pasture on both sides), others as a second, larger outer zone. The ambiguity is in the original.

35:6

A city of refuge was a designated town a killer could run to and be safe from the dead person's relatives until his case was heard. The Hebrew word rendered "manslayer" or "slayer" covers any killing of a person, deliberate or accidental alike, the same word is used of the murderer and of the man who kills by accident. That is why the following verses have to spell out how to tell the two apart.

35:8

Each tribe was given its own share of Canaan to keep forever and hand down to its children. A tribe with a big share gave up more towns to the Levites; a small tribe gave fewer.

35:10

Canaan was the land God had promised to give them. They had not gotten there yet.

35:11

"At unawares" is King James English for unintentionally, by accident, without meaning to. The whole chapter turns on the difference between that and a deliberate killing.

35:12

The "avenger of blood" (Hebrew go'el ha-dam) was not a vigilante but a recognized legal figure: the nearest male relative of the dead person, whose family duty it was to see the death answered for. The same word go'el covers a relative's other duties, buying back land a poor kinsman had sold, or buying a kinsman out of debt-slavery. "Redeemer" is the same idea: the family member who acts on your behalf when you cannot. The "congregation" or "assembly" here is the community acting as a court, in practice its elders and representatives, not a religious gathering.

35:14

"This side Jordan" means the east side, where Moses is speaking, the land already taken by Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh. Canaan means the land west of the river, not yet entered. So the six cities are split evenly across the water, three in each region.

35:15

The King James uses two words for two overlapping groups: the "stranger" (ger) is a foreigner who has settled permanently among the Israelites, and the "sojourner" (toshav) is one staying temporarily. The point of naming both is that the protection is not limited to Israelites.

35:16

Verses 16 to 21 work by evidence, not by categories of weapon for their own sake. Striking someone with iron, or with a stone or piece of wood large enough to kill, shows the blow was meant to kill; so does shoving out of hatred, ambush, or hostility. The object and the circumstances are how a court reads intent when it cannot read a mind.

35:19

"The revenger of blood" is the same person the earlier verses call the avenger: the relative of the dead man. Note what the law does here. Once a court has found the killing deliberate, the execution is still carried out by the family, but only with the community's verdict behind it.

35:20

"Laying of wait" means lying in ambush. Along with "of hatred" in this verse and "in enmity" in the next, it marks premeditation: the killer had a motive beforehand and planned the moment.

35:22

"Without enmity" and "without laying of wait" are the exact opposites of the phrases in verses 20 and 21. No prior grudge and no planning means the death was an accident, and the accident cases are what the cities of refuge exist for.

35:24

"The congregation" here is not a religious gathering. It means the assembled community, or its elders, sitting as a court. Ancient Israelite trials were public, held at the town gate, with the whole body of citizens as judge and jury.

35:25

The high priest was the chief of the priests, the one who entered the innermost part of the sanctuary. "Anointed" means oil was poured over his head to mark him as installed in the office; the oil was a specially compounded perfumed mixture reserved for that use. His death is used here as a fixed public endpoint, the accidental killer's confinement lasts an unpredictable length of time, ending only when that one man dies.

35:26

The safe city only kept him safe inside its edges. Outside, no one was protecting him.

35:27

"He shall not be guilty of blood" means the avenger will not himself be charged with murder. The refuge is territorial: the protection belongs to the place, and stepping outside its boundary cancels it.

35:29

"A statute of judgment" means a permanent legal rule rather than a one time instruction, binding on later generations and everywhere they live, not just in the situation being described.

35:30

"By the mouth of witnesses" is a Hebrew idiom for "on the testimony of witnesses." The plural is the point, and the second half of the verse makes it explicit: no execution on one person's word alone.

35:31

"Satisfaction" translates kopher, a ransom or buy-off payment. In the surrounding legal systems of the ancient Near East a killer's family could commonly settle a death by paying compensation to the victim's family. This verse rules that out for deliberate murder, and verse 32 rules out buying an accidental killer an early release from his city of refuge.

35:32

The same rule again, applied the other way. A wealthy accidental killer cannot pay his way home early; he serves the same confinement as a poor one. "The priest" here means the high priest of verse 25.

35:33

The language of blood "polluting" and "defiling" the land is not figurative in the way a modern reader might assume. Unanswered killing is spoken of as a physical stain on the territory itself, which no ritual can wash out; the word behind "cleansed" is the ordinary word for making atonement. The land, not just the household, is treated as the injured party.

35:34

"Wherein I dwell" uses a verb meaning to settle or pitch a tent, the same root behind the word for the tabernacle, the portable sanctuary carried in the middle of the camp. The claim is one of location: God is described as living in the same territory as the people, which is why what happens to the ground matters.