19:1-10 records laws concerning the establishment of the cities of refuge. These cities were discussed in Bemidbar 35:9-34, which raises the question, why is there another discussion of these cites?
A possible answer is that the sections have different purposes. One clue of the difference purposes of Devarim 19:1-10 and Bemidbar 34:9-34 are the concluding verses to the two sections. Devarim 19:10 records that the accidental killer must be able to get to the city of refuge in order that he will not be killed by the relative of the victim because the community is responsibility for his life. On the other hand, Bemidbar 35:33 records that the accidental killer must go to the city of refuge in order that the land will not be polluted with his presence. The concern in Bemidbar 35:9-34 is to punish the accidental killer while in Devarim 19:1-10 the goal is to protect the accidental killer from the relative of the victim. Therefore, Devarim 19:3 stresses the importance of preparing the roads and dividing the country evenly in order to facilitate access to the city of refuge. Also, 19:4 includes the word “live” in reference to the accidental killer.
This duality of the city of refuge explains why the laws are recorded separately. The punishment of the killer, the theme of Bemidbar 35:9-34, is to ensure the sanctity of the land, and Bemidbar 35 is recorded within a discussion of the people's inheritance of the land, Bemidbar 33 and 34. Conversely, the leaders of the nation are responsible for ensuring that the accidental killer is not killed, and hence Devarim 19:1-10 is recorded within the section that refers to the political, religious and judicial leaders of the people.
One difficulty in Devarim 19:1-10 is that it is unclear how many cites of refuge were to be established. Bemidbar 35:13,14 record that there were to be six cities, three on the eastern side of the Jordan River and three on the western side of the River. Devarim 4:41-43 record that Moshe designated three cities on the eastern side, which would mean that only another three more cities were to be established. Thus, 19:2 records that the people were to establish another three cities, which makes six. Afterwards, 19:8,9 records that when the people would receive more land, another three cities would be established apparently making nine in total, see Rashi on 19:9. Were there supposed to be six or nine cities of refuge?
Another question is that 19:3 and 19:9 appear to ignore the three cities designated by Moshe. 19:3 states that the accidental killer could run to the three cites that were to be established on the western side of the Jordan River, but if Moshe had already designated three cites of refuge then the accidental killer really had a choice of six cities. 19:9 seems to states that the last three cities would be in addition to the three cities that were to be established when the people would come into the land of Israel, as recorded in 19:2. Yet, 19:9 should have stated that these three cities would be in addition to the six cities, the three designated by Moshe and the three that were to be established when the people would come into the land of Israel.
In order to answer these questions we need to understand 19:6. This verse states the rationale for establishing the three cities of refugee on the western side of the Jordan River was because without these cities it would be difficult for the accidental killer to reach asylum because the distance would be too great. What does the phrase “a great distance” refer to? A great distance from where?
Some modern Bible scholars have suggested that the altar was also to serve as a place of refuge, and then the phrase “a great distance” means too far away from the altar. However, the Torah never states that the altar was a place of refuge, see Jeffrey Stackert (2006). For example, 19:3 states that the accidental killer could run to the three cities, but if the altar was also a place of refuge, then the verse should have stated that the accidental killer could run to four places, the three cities and the altar.
The reference of the phrase “a great distance” in 19:6 is to the three cities of refuge established by Moshe on the eastern side of the Jordan River. When the people would come into the land of Israel, on the western side of the river, it would be too far and difficult to cross the river to get to the three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River. (Today the Jordan River is barely a creek because Israel and Jordan stop water from flowing down the Jordan. However, in the past it was a much more powerful river. In 1848, the head of a US Naval expedition of the river, William Frances Lynch (1849, p.264) reported to the Secretary of the US Navy, "Too my consternation, I soon found that Jordan was interrupted in its course by frequent and most fearful rapids.") Thus, another three cites had to be established on the western side of the Jordan River as indicated by 19:6.
Once it is recognized that the three cities established by Moshe were not accessible to the overwhelming majority (80%) of the people, then they were irrelevant to most of the people. Thus, 19:3 only states that the accidental killer could run to the three cities that were to be established on the western side of the Jordan River since these were the only relevant cities.
Even when the people would receive more land, 19:8, still the cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River would remain geographically inaccessible since the increase in land was to be in north and a little in the south, but not in the east, which is all desert. Thus, 19:6-9 state that just as the people were to establish three cities of refuge on the western side of the Jordan River since the three cities designated by Moshe on the eastern side of the Jordan river were not accessible, so too another three cities would have to be established in the future on the new land since the three accessible cities of refuge on the western side of the Jordan River would no longer be accessible with the new land. 19:9 means that when the people received more land they would need three more accessible cities of refuge in addition to the three already existing accessible cities. The verse ignores the cities established by Moshe since these were geographically inaccessible to all the people living on the western side of the Jordan River. There would be nine cities of refuge, but only six would be relatively accessible. In addition, the reference to the six cities of refuge in Bemidbar 35:13,14 could be to the cities that were to be established upon the conquest of the land which would be the three that Moshe established and the three referred to in 19:2.
The net result is that altogether there would be nine cities of refuge. This number was not based on an equal division of the country but on the three zones of the country that each zone had three cities. The first zone was the land of Israel proper, the second zone was the land on the eastern side of the Jordan River, and the third zone was the land that eventually would become part of the land of Israel in the north.
Note, it is possible that within each zone the land was divided equally. According to 19:3, the land in the first zone was to be divided equally (see Ibn Ezra on 19:3), and the Talmud (Makkot 9B) states that the land on the eastern side of the Jordan River, zone two, was also to be divided evenly. Yet, it is also possible that the cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River were not divided geographically, and instead each tribe “received” a city.
Bibliography:
Lynch, William Francis, 1849, Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, Reprint in 1977, New York: Arno Press.
Stackert, Jeffrey, 2006, Why Does Deuteronomy legislate Cities of Refuge? Asylum in the Covenant Collection (Exodus 21:12–14) and Deuteronomy (19:1–13), Journal of Biblical Literature, 125:1, pp. 23-49.
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