A Merciful Justice: The Cities of God Text: Numbers 35:6-8
Introduction: God's Peculiar Real Estate
We live in a time when the concepts of justice and mercy have been set against one another, as though they were two pit bulls in a fighting ring. The world screams for a justice that is really just vengeance, or it pleads for a mercy that is nothing more than sentimental mush, a dismissal of all standards. One side wants to burn everything down for past grievances, and the other wants to pretend that nothing was ever wrong in the first place. Both are roads to ruin, because both are fundamentally godless.
But when we come to the Word of God, we find that justice and mercy are not warring principles. They are not in tension. In the mind of God, they kiss. They are two sides of the same glorious coin of His character. And here in the plains of Moab, as Israel is on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, God lays out a system of civic order that is breathtaking in its wisdom. It is a system that provides for the ministers of the Word, establishes a robust and merciful system of justice, and points forward with unerring accuracy to the ultimate refuge we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The instructions here concern the Levites, that peculiar tribe that was not to receive a territorial inheritance like their brothers. Their inheritance was to be the Lord Himself. But this did not mean they were to be homeless spiritual vagabonds. God is intensely practical. He provides for them by commanding the other tribes to give them cities to dwell in, scattered throughout the entire nation. This arrangement is not some arbitrary detail of ancient Israelite property law. It is a masterstroke of divine wisdom. It ensured that the teachers of the law, the ministers of the covenant, were distributed among all the people. No corner of the nation was to be a God-forsaken backwater, devoid of spiritual instruction. The Levites were to be a constant, living reminder of the presence and claims of God in every part of the land.
And within this provision, God establishes something even more remarkable: the cities of refuge. These were not just Levitical cities; they were havens, places of asylum where justice could be sorted out with a clear head, free from the heat of vengeful passion. In these verses, we see the foundation of a society that values human life, distinguishes between accident and malice, and provides a real, tangible picture of the grace that would one day be fully realized in Christ.
The Text
And the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee to; and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. All the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be forty-eight cities, together with their pasture lands. Now as for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the sons of Israel, you shall take more from the larger, and you shall take less from the smaller; each shall give some of his cities to the Levites in proportion to his possession which he inherits.
(Numbers 35:6-8 LSB)
A Distributed Ministry (v. 6a, 7)
First, let us consider the overall provision for the Levites.
"...and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. All the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be forty-eight cities, together with their pasture lands." (Numbers 35:6b-7)
The Levites were the tribe of Levi, set apart for the service of the Tabernacle and, later, the Temple. When Jacob prophesied over his sons, he said of Simeon and Levi, "I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel" (Gen. 49:7). For Simeon, this was a curse of dissolution. For Levi, because of their zeal for the Lord at the golden calf incident (Ex. 32:26-29), God transformed this scattering into a blessing. They were scattered not to be absorbed and disappear, but to be a spiritual influence throughout the entire nation.
Their inheritance was not a plot of land, but the Lord Himself. This meant their provision came from the tithes and offerings of the people. They were to be a tribe utterly dependent on the faithfulness of God, mediated through the faithfulness of His people. This is a permanent principle. Those who minister the gospel are to live of the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14). But this spiritual inheritance had a physical outworking. They were given forty-eight cities with pasture lands. They were not landowners in the same way as the other tribes, but they were provided for. They had homes, communities, and places to raise their families and their livestock.
This scattering was God's strategic plan for catechizing the nation. You couldn't get away from them. There was a Levitical city nearby, a constant resource for teaching, for counsel, for the administration of God's law. This is a picture of what the church is to be. We are not to be a holy huddle, cloistered away in our Christian ghettoes. We are to be salt and light, scattered throughout the culture, bringing the knowledge of God to every corner of our society.
Mercy's Sanctuary (v. 6b)
Within this network of Levitical cities, God carves out a special provision.
"And the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee to..." (Numbers 35:6)
Here we see the heart of our passage. Six of these forty-eight cities were to be designated as cities of refuge. A city of refuge was a place of asylum for a person who had killed someone unintentionally. We must grasp the distinction God is making here. The Bible is unflinchingly clear about the penalty for murder: "Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed" (Gen. 9:6). This is the bedrock of civil justice. But God, who is the author of justice, also makes a sharp distinction between premeditated murder and accidental death, what the law calls manslaughter.
In that ancient culture, the "avenger of blood," a near kinsman of the deceased, had the right and duty to execute the killer. This was a mechanism of justice in a world without a modern police force. But this system had a glaring potential for abuse. In the heat of grief and anger, a man might not stop to ask whether the death was a tragic accident or a malicious act. A woodcutter's axe head flying off the handle (Deut. 19:5) is not the same as a man lying in wait to ambush his neighbor.
The cities of refuge were God's gracious provision to ensure that justice, not raw vengeance, prevailed. They were a cooling-off period, a divinely appointed circuit breaker. The manslayer could flee to one of these cities, and as long as he was within its walls, he was safe from the avenger of blood until his case could be heard by the congregation. It was in a Levitical city, a place dedicated to the ministry of God's Word and law, that the truth could be carefully discerned. Mercy and justice were both served. Justice, because a trial would determine guilt or innocence. Mercy, because the innocent were protected from unjust retribution.
Proportional Responsibility (v. 8)
Finally, the text lays out the principle by which these cities were to be provided.
"Now as for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the sons of Israel, you shall take more from the larger, and you shall take less from the smaller; each shall give some of his cities to the Levites in proportion to his possession which he inherits." (Numbers 35:8)
This is the principle of proportional responsibility, or what we might call a flat tax. It is a profoundly just and simple principle. Those who have been blessed with more are responsible to give more. Those who have less are responsible to give less. The tribe of Judah, with its large territory and population, would contribute more cities than the smaller tribe of Benjamin.
This is not a progressive tax, where the percentage of giving increases with wealth. It is proportional. The percentage is the same for all, but the amount varies. God requires of us according to what He has given us. This principle runs through all of Scripture. It applies to our tithes, our offerings, and the use of our gifts and talents. To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48).
This system ensured that the burden of supporting the ministry and the system of justice was shared equitably among all the people. It was not an undue hardship on any one tribe. It was a corporate responsibility, a shared investment in the spiritual health and civil stability of the entire nation. Everyone had skin in the game. This fosters unity and prevents the kind of resentment that builds up when some are seen as carrying the entire load while others do nothing.
Christ, Our City of Refuge
Now, as with all such Old Testament institutions, we must see how this points us to Christ. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that we who are believers have "fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us" (Heb. 6:18). This is the language of the cities of refuge. We are all, in a sense, manslayers. We have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our sin has brought death into the world. And we are pursued. The avenger of blood, who is the just law of God, is hot on our heels. The law rightly demands our life. "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:20).
There is nowhere on earth we can hide. No good works, no religious observance, no self-improvement plan can save us from the just sentence of the law. We are guilty, and the avenger is closing in. Our only hope is to flee. We must flee to the refuge that God Himself has appointed.
That refuge is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our sanctuary. When we run to Him in faith, we are safe. The law's demands are met, not by our running, but by His blood. He is the one who took the full force of the avenger's sword in our place. Inside the walls of this city, that is, in union with Christ, the curse of the law cannot touch us. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1).
Notice also that the manslayer had to remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest (Num. 35:25). Only then could he return to his home, fully free. This is a stunning picture of our salvation. We have fled to Christ for refuge, and we must abide in Him. But our ultimate freedom is secured by the death of our High Priest. Yet here the typology gloriously breaks down. Our High Priest, Jesus, has already died for our sins. But He has also been raised from the dead, and He lives forever! Because our High Priest will never die again, our refuge in Him is permanent and eternal. We are not waiting for His death to be free; we are free because He died, and we are eternally secure because He lives.
This ancient law, embedded in the property arrangements of Israel, is a brilliant sermon on justice, mercy, and grace. It shows us a God who is intensely concerned with the right ordering of society, a God who provides for His ministers, and a God who, above all, provides a refuge for guilty sinners. Have you fled to Him? The avenger is real, the condemnation is just, and there is only one place of safety. Run to Christ.