A Tale of Two Cities… 🌇🏙️

These chapters cover two kinds of cities – Cities of Refuge and the Cities of the inhabitants of the land.

We’ve already encountered the cities of refuge once before. They are where the perpetrator of accidental manslaughter can go as a safe haven to avoid being killed by the family avenger.

If a murderer tries to hide out in a city of refuge – and I imagine that happened – then the Elders of the city where the victim lived will basically investigate and arrest the murderer. If he’s found guilty he would be executed.

Here is a portion of the Law that gets blatantly violated during Jesus’ trial:

“If a malicious witness gets up to accuse anyone to testify against him falsely, then the two men to whom the legal dispute pertains shall stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. Then judges shall make a thorough inquiry, and if it turns out that the witness is a false witness and he testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he meant to do to his brother, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭19‬:‭16‬-‭19‬ ‭LEB‬‬

Here are the 6 cities that eventually became cities of refuge. They are all Levitical cities – towns specially allocated for the Levites to live in. At the time of Deuteronomy 18, there are only 3 on the east of the Jordan. The others will be added later. I underlined them on this map:

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Then the Lord gives instructions on how exactly to do the conquest. The priests are going to give the troops a pep talk and send home all the guys who would miss out on Yahweh’s blessings if they died in battle. And send home the guys who are – shall we say – negatively effecting troop morale.

It’s important to note that only the giant-clan Nephilim tribes get totally annihilated (men/women/children/animals), and the demonized, human sacrificing, witchcraft-practicing tribes get the men wiped out. The women and children are spared.

The cities that are on the edges of the land or otherwise decent folk are offered terms of peace. If they accept, they live and become servants of the Israelites. If they choose to fight – well, that doesn’t end well for them.

I find it interesting that the Lord includes the details here about what to do with the trees.

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It was common practice in the ancient world for armies to ruin the land of their subjugated foes – on purpose. The environmentalists today would probably drop dead from the horror. 😱😵

They would cut down every single tree, fill up the wells with dirt, and throw rocks and salt on every field. That’s an awful lot of work. I remember helping my grandpa haul rocks off a field once. It blows my mind that one person could hate another so much that they would do that much work to wreck their land.

Yahweh forbids the felling of food-crop trees. And He basically says in verse 19, “What did the trees ever do to you, that you would want to cut them down?”

This is, after all, Yahweh’s land. Those are His trees. And He cares.

If God cares about fruit trees, He cares about you. And He cares about your trees too. And even the grass and wildflowers in your yard.

I’ll leave you with this:

“And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe the lilies of the field, how they grow: they do not toil or spin, but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. But if God dresses the grass of the field in this way, although it is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not do so much more for you, you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?,’ for the pagans seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭28‬-‭33‬ ‭LEB‬‬