Joshua 20
Joshua 20 does something quietly astonishing: it turns an old law into a real place on a map. Years before, at Sinai and again on the plains of Moab, the LORD had commanded that cities of refuge be set apart - somewhere the person who killed by accident could flee and live. Now, with Canaan conquered and the land divided among the tribes, Joshua makes the command concrete. Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses (v. 2). The promise that had lived only in words for a generation now becomes stone and gate and timber. What God says, He keeps - and He keeps it where people can walk to it.3
The mercy of the chapter is carefully drawn. It is not blanket pardon for every killer; it shelters specifically the one who slew unawares and unwittingly (v. 3) - because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime (v. 5). And it is not loosely run: the fugitive stands at the gate, declares his cause to the elders, is taken in, given a place, and protected from the avenger of blood until he has stood before the whole congregation for judgment. Mercy and justice do not fight here; they work together. The accidental killer is sheltered, the truth is weighed in the open, and no one is delivered up to private vengeance before the matter has been heard.
Then six cities are named - three west of Jordan, three east - spread from the far north to the deep south so that no Israelite is far from refuge. And the law reaches past Israel's own: the cities stand open for the stranger that sojourneth among them (v. 9), the resident foreigner with no tribe and no inheritance. The road to the refuge is kept clear, and the gate is open to the outsider as well as the native-born. Read closely, the chapter holds out a picture the New Testament will pick up by name - a refuge that is near, named, and open, where the one under sentence of death may flee for safety, and from which he goes home free at the death of the high priest.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Joshua 20:1-3That the Slayer May Flee Thither
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.
The chapter opens by reaching back across a generation. The LORD also spake unto Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel… Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses (vv. 1-2). This is not a new idea dropped suddenly into the story. The command was given long before - first in the law at Sinai, then spelled out in detail on the plains of Moab as the people prepared to cross into Canaan. God said it through Moses; now, with Moses gone and the land won and divided, He says it again to Joshua and tells him to make it real. The little phrase whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses is doing quiet but important work. It tells the reader that the cities of refuge were never an afterthought, never an improvisation forced by events. They were woven into the shape of Israel's life from the start, held in reserve until the people actually possessed a land in which to build them. The LORD does not forget what He has promised. He waits for the right moment - and then He keeps His word in stone and timber.3
Notice at once how carefully the mercy is bounded. The refuge is not for every killer; it is that the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither (v. 3). The whole provision turns on a distinction the law takes with great seriousness - the difference between what a person intended and what merely happened through his hand. An accident is not murder. A moment of carelessness, a tool that slips, a stone that falls, a death no one wished - these are real, and they leave real blood and real grief, but they are not the same as malice. The earlier law gives the very examples: an axe-head flying off its handle, a man struck without lying in wait. For such a one there must be a place to run. The cities of refuge are God building room for the human heart into the structure of justice itself. He will not let the man who never meant harm be treated as though he had plotted murder. Mercy, here, is not the suspension of justice; it is justice that knows the difference between an accident and a crime.
The danger the fugitive runs from has a name: they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood (v. 3). In the world of the patriarchs and the judges, when a person was killed, the duty of seeing justice done fell to the nearest kinsman - the same relative who, in better circumstances, would redeem a brother's land or buy him back from slavery. In the case of bloodshed his role turned grim: he became the one who pursued the killer to exact the life that had been taken. The avenger of blood was not a vigilante operating outside the law; he was a recognized figure within it, and behind him stood a true principle - that a human life is precious and that the shedding of innocent blood cannot simply be ignored. But grief moves fast, and a kinsman in the heat of loss could not always weigh intent. So the cities of refuge stand between the fleeing manslayer and the pursuing kinsman: a place where the chase is halted, the truth examined, and the difference between accident and murder soberly determined before any blood is taken in return.1
Joshua 20:4-6Declare His Cause at the Gate
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.
The fugitive does not creep into the city by night and lose himself in the crowd. He goes to the most public spot there is: he… 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 (v. 4). The gate was the civic heart of an ancient town - where the elders sat, where business was struck, where disputes were judged in the open. There, in front of the men whose task was to weigh such things, the one who has fled tells his story aloud. This is not hiding; it is the opposite of hiding. He declares his cause - he names what happened, in the hearing of witnesses, and asks to be received. Only then, having heard him, do the elders take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. The pattern is worth pausing over: he comes, he speaks the truth of what he has done, he is heard, and he is taken in and given a place. The refuge does not ask him to pretend. It asks him to come and tell, and then it receives him.
Then comes the heart of the protection: And 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 (v. 5). Even if the kinsman comes right up to the gate demanding the fugitive be handed over, the city will not give him up - and the reason is stated plainly, the same reason that governed the whole provision: he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime. There had been no malice, no grudge, no lying in wait. The text is careful here, and we should be too. The shelter is explicitly for the one who killed without hatred and without intent; the earlier law is just as explicit that a true murderer found in such a city was to be taken even from there and given to justice. So the protection is not a blanket immunity that lets the guilty escape. It is a refuge for the specific person the law has in view - the one who never hated, who never plotted, whose hand brought death but whose heart intended none. For that person, the city stands as an unbreakable shield.
The fugitive is taken in at once, but the matter is not closed by the elders of the refuge alone: he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment (v. 6). The immediate shelter and the final verdict are two different things. The city gives him safety the moment he arrives; but the truth of his case - whether he really killed unwittingly or whether there was hidden malice - must still be examined before the wider assembly. Justice here is neither rushed nor hidden. It is not done in a corner by a frightened crowd or settled by whoever shouts loudest at the gate. The man is sheltered first, so that no one takes his life before the question is heard; and then he stands before the congregation, in the open, where the matter can be weighed soberly and his cause confirmed. Mercy moves quickly to protect; justice takes its proper time to be sure. The two are held together - the fugitive safe while the truth is established, the truth established before he is finally cleared.
And now the chapter says something that has held the attention of readers for centuries. The manslayer's freedom to go home is tied not to the passing of years, nor to a fine paid, nor to his own good behaviour, but to a single event: 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 (v. 6). He remains in the refuge until the high priest dies. When that death comes, the fugitive is free - free to leave the city, free to go home, free from the avenger of blood forever. And this was true of every manslayer in every city of refuge across the land: one death released them all, on the same day, together. It is a remarkable design. The release of the guilty does not depend on something the guilty do; it depends on a death - the death of the one man who stood as high priest before God for the people. Why this should be so, the text does not stop to explain. It simply binds the freedom of the captive to the death of the high priest, and leaves the picture standing.
Joshua 20:7-9The Cities Named, for Israel and the Stranger
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.
Three cities are named on the western side of the Jordan, and their placement is no accident: Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah (v. 7). Read down the list and you are reading down the map from north to south. Kedesh sits in the far north, in the hill country of Naphtali, near enough to reach for anyone living in the upper reaches of the land. Shechem stands in the central highlands of Ephraim - the very heart of the country, the place where Abraham first stood when he entered Canaan and where Joshua will gather all Israel for the renewing of the covenant. Hebron, the old Kirjath-arba, anchors the south in the Judean hills - the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the resting place of the patriarchs. The spacing is deliberate: a refuge in the north, one in the center, one in the south, so that no Israelite in the western tribes is more than a hard day's journey from safety. And note where the refuges are set - not in obscure corners, but in places thick with the memory of God's covenant. Even the manslayer flees toward the heart of his people's story.
Then the same care is taken for the tribes who settled east of the Jordan: And 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 (v. 8). Three cities again, and again spread from south to north along the eastern side: Bezer on the high plain of Reuben in the south, Ramoth in the region of Gilead in the center, Golan up in Bashan to the north. The tribes that received their inheritance on the far side of the river are not forgotten or treated as second-class. They get the same provision, the same protection, the same number of refuges, set out with the same even spacing. Six cities in all - three west, three east - blanketing the whole territory of Israel so that wherever a person lived, on either side of the Jordan, there was a refuge within reach. The mercy of God in this chapter is not concentrated in one favored place. It is distributed, deliberately, across the entire land He gave.
The final verse gathers the whole provision into a sentence - and then widens it past anything a reader might have assumed: These 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 (v. 9). The refuge is not for Israelites only. It is also for the stranger that sojourneth among them - the resident foreigner, the one with no tribal land, no inheritance in Israel, no blood-kinship to claim. Such a person, by every ordinary reckoning, would have the least standing of anyone in the land. And yet the city of refuge is explicitly opened to him on the same terms: the same right to flee, the same gate, the same protection while the truth is determined. God's mercy here does not stop at the border of covenant blood. It reaches the outsider living in the land and gives him exactly the same shelter it gives the native-born. The word whosoever in this verse is doing a great deal: whoever it is, Israelite or sojourner, who kills at unawares, the refuge stands open to him.2
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Joshua 20 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for miqlat (vv. 2-3, the “refuge” or place of asylum), for the goel haddam (v. 3, “the avenger of blood”), and for the law's careful distinction between the one who kills unwittingly and the murderer.
- Joshua 20 ↔ Numbers 35 · Deuteronomy 19 · Hebrews 6 & 9Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Joshua 20 to the rest of Scripture - the cities-of-refuge law first given in Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19, and the New Testament's use of the image: fleeing for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us (Heb. 6:18) and the captive freed by the death of the High Priest (Heb. 9:12-15).
- Joshua 20 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Joshua 20 - the renewed command of verses 1-2, the legal procedure at the city gate (vv. 4-6), the meaning of the slayer dwelling there until the death of the high priest, and the geography of the six cities named in verses 7-8.
Where this echoes in Scripture
That the Slayer May Flee Thither
- Numbers 35:11-12then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares.The command first given through Moses (v. 2) - the law Joshua now carries out.
- Deuteronomy 19:2-3Thou shalt separate three cities for thee... Thou shalt prepare thee a way... that every slayer may flee thither.The road to the refuge kept clear - the same provision Joshua makes concrete in the land.
- Hebrews 6:18we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.The fugitive’s flight of verse 3 named in the New Testament - fleeing for refuge to Christ.
- Psalm 46:1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.The refuge of verse 3 sung of the LORD Himself - the shelter near at hand.
- Psalm 18:2The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength... my high tower.The refuge from the avenger (v. 3) as the rock and high tower of the soul.
Declare His Cause at the Gate
- Hebrews 9:12by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.The release at the high priest’s death (v. 6) - eternal redemption obtained by the death of our High Priest.
- Hebrews 9:15that by means of death... they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.The chapter’s own logic - the captive brought home by means of a death.
- 1 John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.The declaring of his cause at the gate (v. 4) - confession met by faithful welcome.
- Numbers 35:24-25the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood... and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest.The same procedure (vv. 5-6) - judged by the congregation, held until the high priest’s death.
- Hebrews 4:14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.The High Priest whose death frees the captive of verse 6 - named as Jesus.
The Cities Named, for Israel and the Stranger
- John 3:16God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.The refuge opened to the stranger (v. 9) - the same <em>whosoever</em> widened to the world.
- John 6:37him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.No one who flees in earnest turned away at the gate (vv. 4, 9).
- Ruth 4:9-10Boaz said... I have bought all that was Elimelech’s... to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.The kinsman-redeemer (<em>goel</em>) in his redeeming role - the same word behind the avenger of blood (v. 9).
- Ephesians 2:12-13ye were... strangers from the covenants of promise... but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh.The stranger of verse 9 brought near - the outsider given full access in Christ.
- Numbers 35:15These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger... that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.The very provision of verse 9 first given through Moses - refuge for Israel and stranger alike.