And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan; then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares. And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger; that the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment. | ||
| Numbers 35:9–12 | ||
| In Bible days, there was no such thing as a police force. There was no constable, no sheriff, no deputy, and no patrolman. It was up to the family to keep law and order. Therefore, the way it worked was as follows: If my brother Jimmy was crossing the street and you accidentally hit and killed him, as his brother, it would be up to me to avenge his death - to track you down and kill you. No matter how long it might take, culture required that I kill you. The idea of the avenger was neither created nor condoned by God. God here is simply controlling the reality of the day, similar to when He gave rules and regulations concerning practices such as divorce and slavery. Why didn’t He simply do away with these practices altogether? Because He’s treating His people as a family. When Ben and Mary were little, I didn’t have the same requirements or the same expectations for them that I do now that they’re seventeen and eighteen. And they’ll have still greater obligations when they’re twenty and twenty-one. As our kids grow older, we expect more out of them. But we don’t burden them immediately. We let them grow. That’s what our Father does with His family. Here in the very early stages of their nationhood, and because these customs were already deeply imbedded in their culture, God placed boundaries around customs like that of the avenger, dealing with them more fully as they grew. Pastor Jon Courson | ||
