4/2/11
Numbers 35-36
Cities for the Levites
Numbers 35:1 In the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Command the Israelites to give, from the inheritance that they possess, towns for the Levites to live in; you shall also give to the Levites pasture lands surrounding the towns. 3 The towns shall be theirs to live in, and their pasture lands shall be for their cattle, for their livestock, and for all their animals.
4 The pasture lands of the towns, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the town outward a thousand cubits all around. 5 You shall measure, outside the town, for the east side two thousand cubits, for the south side two thousand cubits, for the west side two thousand cubits, and for the north side two thousand cubits, with the town in the middle; this shall belong to them as pasture land for their towns.
6 The towns that you give to the Levites shall include the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit a slayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two towns. 7 The towns that you give to the Levites shall total forty-eight, with their pasture lands. 8 And as for the towns that you shall give from the possession of the Israelites, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it obtains, shall give of its towns to the Levites.
Cities of Refuge (Deut 19.1—13; Josh 20.1—9)
9 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 10 Speak to the Israelites, and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, so that a slayer who kills a person without intent may flee there. 12 The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, so that the slayer may not die until there is a trial before the congregation.
13 The cities that you designate shall be six cities of refuge for you: 14 you shall designate three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. 15 These six cities shall serve as refuge for the Israelites, for the resident or transient alien among them, so that anyone who kills a person without intent may flee there.
Concerning Murder and Blood Revenge
16 But anyone who strikes another with an iron object, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. 17 Or anyone who strikes another with a stone in hand that could cause death, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. 18 Or anyone who strikes another with a weapon of wood in hand that could cause death, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. 19 The avenger of blood is the one who shall put the murderer to death; when they meet, the avenger of blood shall execute the sentence. 20 Likewise, if someone pushes another from hatred, or hurls something at another, lying in wait, and death ensues, 21 or in enmity strikes another with the hand, and death ensues, then the one who struck the blow shall be put to death; that person is a murderer; the avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death, when they meet.
22 But if someone pushes another suddenly without enmity, or hurls any object without lying in wait, 23 or, while handling any stone that could cause death, unintentionally drops it on another and death ensues, though they were not enemies, and no harm was intended, 24 then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these ordinances; 25 and the congregation shall rescue the slayer from the avenger of blood. Then the congregation shall send the slayer back to the original city of refuge. The slayer shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. 26 But if the slayer shall at any time go outside the bounds of the original city of refuge, 27 and is found by the avenger of blood outside the bounds of the city of refuge, and is killed by the avenger, no bloodguilt shall be incurred. 28 For the slayer must remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest; but after the death of the high priest the slayer may return home.
29 These things shall be a statute and ordinance for you throughout your generations wherever you live.
30 If anyone kills another, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses; but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of a single witness. 31 Moreover you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is subject to the death penalty; a murderer must be put to death. 32 Nor shall you accept ransom for one who has fled to a city of refuge, enabling the fugitive to return to live in the land before the death of the high priest. 33 You shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the Lord dwell among the Israelites.
Six of the Levitical cities, three on each side of the Jordan River, were to be designated as cities of refuge whereby a person who had committed manslaughter or caused some other form of unintentional death to an individual would be afforded asylum and protection from potential avenging by a member of the slain person’s family. As both Israel and God’s inheritance, the Levites resided in cities established throughout the land among each of the twelve tribes as living symbols of faithfulness and holiness to God. The entire land belonged to God, and he had granted it as an inheritance to his people. But although promise and inheritance were gracious gifts to the nation, possession and prosperity were conditional based upon the faithfulness of the people to the covenant stipulations that defined the relationship between God and humanity. Transgression of the stipulations of the covenant could lead to Israel’s being dispossessed or driven out from their inheritance because their rebellion and rejection of God’s sovereignty could bring defilement to the land. Legislation in chap. 35 was designed to preserve the wholeness, holiness, and purity of the Promised Land and is thus an extension of the Holiness Code of Leviticus. (Note that the parallel passage in Deut 19:1–13 emphasizes the division of the Cisjordan territory into three parts with each having a refuge city. It also further defines the premeditated aspect that precipitated the murderous act, as well as several cases of accidental death.) These cities would be designated after the conquest of the land west of the Jordan and the apportioning of the land among the tribes (Josh 20:1–9). Cole, R. D. (2001). Vol. 3B: Numbers; The New American Commentary (548–549). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.Marriage of Female Heirs
36 The heads of the ancestral houses of the clans of the descendants of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, of the Josephite clans, came forward and spoke in the presence of Moses and the leaders, the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelites; 2 they said, “The Lord commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the Israelites; and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. 3 But if they are married into another Israelite tribe, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestors and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken away from the allotted portion of our inheritance. 4 And when the jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they have married; and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”
5 Then Moses commanded the Israelites according to the word of the Lord, saying, “The descendants of the tribe of Joseph are right in what they are saying. 6 This is what the Lord commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, ‘Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father’s tribe that they are married, 7 so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes. 8 Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father’s tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to possess their ancestral inheritance. 9 No inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for each of the tribes of the Israelites shall retain its own inheritance.’ ”
10 The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord had commanded Moses. 11 Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, married sons of their father’s brothers. 12 They were married into the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s clan.
13 These are the commandments and the ordinances that the Lord commanded through Moses to the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.
Devotionals, Videos and more ...
by Bill Federer
The world of communication was revolutionized by a man who died this day, April 2, 1872. His name: Samuel Morse. He invented the telegraph and the Morse Code. An outstanding portrait artist in his own right, founding the National Academy of Design, Morse erected the first telegraph lines between Baltimore and the U.S. Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C. in 1844. The first message he sent over this new communication system was only four words, a verse from the Bible, Numbers 23:23: “What hath God Wrought! ”
Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.
by D.H. Stern
The rich rule the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender.
He who sows injustice reaps trouble,
and the rod of his angry outburst will fail.
Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.
by Oswald Chambers
The glory that excels
The Lord … hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight. --- Acts 9:17. Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest
When Paul received his sight he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ—“I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ.
We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ.
The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God’s own heart.
Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.
‘Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,
I’ve lost sight of all beside,
So enchanted my spirit’s vision,
Gazing on the Crucified.’
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas
Golden Wedding
Cold hands meeting,
the eyes aside -
so vows are contracted
in the tongue's absence.
Gradually
over fifty long years
of held breath
the heart has become warm
Thomas, R. S.
Betzah 30a
It is policy in a suburban synagogue to celebrate Bar and Bat Mitzvahs only during regular Shabbat services. Each youngster chants a haftarah, reads from the Torah, and leads parts of the service. One year, a family comes before the ritual committee with a special request: They would like their son to be allowed to have his service on the Thursday morning of Thanksgiving. They explain that this date is more convenient for members of the family who are flying in for the holiday but who are unable to remain over the weekend when the Bar Mitzvah was originally scheduled. They point out that the Torah is also read on Monday and Thursday morning, and their child will still be able to lead the service and read from the Five Books of Moses.
The cantor notes that the Torah reading on Thursday is much shorter than the one on Shabbat, that the tunes for the weekday service differ significantly from those on Saturday (which the students have learned), and that there is no haftarah chanted on weekday mornings. The ritual committee, weighing the family’s request against the synagogue’s policies, votes not to make an exception. The Bar Mitzvah must take place on Saturday.
The family is very upset and goes to the next board meeting to complain. In addition to the arguments presented before the ritual committee, they add one more point: The synagogue is being unfair because it allowed other families in the past to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah on a day other than Saturday. They believe that precedent has been set for a weekday Bar Mitzvah and, therefore, the synagogue is morally bound to allow them to depart from the norm as well.
The rabbi answers that it is true that there was an exception made several years before, but the circumstances were unique. The child was severely developmentally handicapped. He had worked very hard to learn the blessings for an aliyah, which was all that he was able to do. But the young boy had a fear of appearing in the synagogue before the large crowd of Shabbat worshipers. The family felt that the only way their son would be able to celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah was at a low-keyed service, attended only by the immediate family and a few close friends. The ritual committee at that time, knowing the difficulties this family had in raising their son, and sensing how important this Bar Mitzvah would be to both the parents and the child, allowed an exception to the rules and set the service for a Monday morning. In his answer to the current request, the rabbi concluded that the former instance was so exceptional that it should not serve as a precedent for any other cases.
The family appearing before the ritual committee, like Rabbi Yehudah, believed very strongly in the power of precedent. If something was allowed before, it should be allowed again. Once an exception has been made, once a precedent has been established, you cannot deny others the same opportunity.
The Rabbis in our Gemara and the rabbi of the synagogue strongly disagree. They fear that following Rabbi Yehudah’s principle, almost all standards would fall away and practically anything could be allowed. The Rabbis believe that the law serves to provide parameters and limits of what is acceptable and what is not. They know that the law must be flexible to allow for special cases and unusual circumstances, but exceptions for extraordinary circumstances do not set precedents for ordinary occasions. Knowing when and where to allow for exceptions is one of the great burdens of leadership.
Better that they be uninformed transgressors than deliberate transgressors.
Text / Rava bar Rabbi Ḥanin said to Abaye: “It is taught: ‘One does not clap hands, slap sides or dance’ yet today people do this and we say nothing to them about it!” He said to him: “According to your reasoning, that which Rabbah said, that a man should not sit right near a stick-marker, lest an object roll away and he will carry it four cubits in a public place, but these women carry their jugs to the entrance of an alley and we say nothing to them about it!” Let Israel be: Better that they be uninformed transgressors than deliberate transgressors. Here, too, let Israel be: Better that they be uninformed transgressors than deliberate transgressors.
Context / Today, people clap their hands and dance on Shabbat, “and we say nothing to them about it!” There are three interesting historical notes about this law. First, while we think of clapping hands and dancing as part of festivities, hand-clapping was also used in the ancient world as part of mourning rituals. Second, Jewish law largely ignored this rule or legislated it out of existence. Authors of legal codes wrote that Jews by and large no longer fix musical instruments regularly, as they once did. This protection for the law is unnecessary. Third, and perhaps most important, is the fact that hand-clapping became a part of recognized, acceptable Jewish practice on Shabbat and holidays. In certain communities, there is a custom (based on Maimonides’ reading of this law) to clap hands with a variation, for example, the back of one hand into the palm of another rather than palms together. This would remind the person that it is Shabbat or a holiday. Thus, the people’s practice determines, to a large degree, what the law is and how (or even if!) it will be enforced.
This section deals with the laws of the festivals and Shabbat, specifically which objects may be carried on a holiday. Rava says: There is a specific prohibition against certain other activities on Shabbat and Festivals—hand-clapping and dancing, for example—yet people ignore this law and the Rabbis, in turn, ignore their transgression. There is disagreement among the commentators as to why these activities are prohibited, but it appears that they are preventive measures. This was done so that one will not engage in an activity (like fixing a musical instrument) that is fully prohibited on Shabbat and holidays.
The “stick-marker” that a person sits near delineates where one domain ends and another begins. Thus, carrying from the private domain, on this side of the marker, to the public domain, on the other side, is prohibited. Why is it, Abaye asks Rava, that we are concerned with a man sitting in one spot, troubled that he may transgress, but we do not care about women carrying their water jugs to the alley’s entrance on Shabbat? In other words, why are we scrupulous in one case, observing not only the law but also a preventive measure to avert accidental transgression, but in the other case, we see a potential problem and totally ignore it?
The answer is simple: “Let Israel be” means roughly “Leave the Jews alone.” If the Jews—in this case, the women with water jugs on Shabbat—are going to carry in any case, even if we tell them that it is prohibited, then it is preferable that they do it ignorant of the law than in intentional and flagrant violation of the law. The Rabbis were concerned with law, yet the interest here is less for this specific law than for the entire legal system. The only way the system works is if people follow rabbinic enactments. If people disobey the law and flaunt this fact, then the entire institution of law suffers. Soon, people will begin to ignore more laws, and the totality of Jewish law suffers. The Rabbis wanted Jews to keep the laws, the specific and proper observances of Jewish life. More important, though, they wanted Jews to observe the law, the entire system. When it became clear that a law would not be followed, the Rabbis might, in some cases, simply come to the conclusion that it is better not to tell the people that they were in violation. Better that they be uninformed transgressors than deliberate transgressors.
Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving
. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.by Diana Wallis
You are the light of the world.… Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. --- Matthew 5:14, 16
Every Christian is placed amid scenes that will bring out her or his character.
You have a child unrenewed. That child will soon stand at the bar of God, will tread the deep profound of the eternal world, and will live forever. Need we put to Christian parents the question whether that child will live forever in heaven or in hell? There is much in the situation of that child to bring the Christian out and develop the character.
Or you have a parent who is not a Christian. Can there be anything so suited to call forth deep feeling in the youthful Christian as the sight of the venerable parent and the feeling that that parent is going unrenewed to the bar of God?
You are a brother or a sister or a friend. The leaden, slow-moving ages of eternity are before your unconverted friends, and what in all the universe is better suited than this to call forth all the Christian within you to holy effort to save those friends from eternal night?
You are members of a Christian church. Does it slumber? Are there hundreds who profess no interest in all that the Redeemer has done to save them? Are they unrenewed, unpardoned, unconcerned, and unalarmed? They go to eternity, and they appeal to you, Christian, to put forth all your efforts to save them from death.
You live in an age when your influence in the cause of revivals and Christian benevolence may be felt around the globe. The farthest pagan tribe, the foulest cell of guilt and filth and woe, the darkest dungeon of depravity may be reached by your aid. A revival of religion such as existed in the day of Pentecost might be felt in its influence in all this land and in every land.
The making visible of your Christian principles, my companion members of the church, is what the world demands and what the Savior who died asks of you. If his death will not do it, there are no motives in the universe that will. There is no other blood, there are no other groans, there can be no more such dying agonies. --- Albert Barnes
(27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.Word Biblical Commentary
This section tells of the provision of cities for the Levites, and the guarantee of grazing rights to them in the surrounding pasture land. The section speaks not of Levitical rights of ownership, inheritance, or possession, but of the right to live in the cities and to pasture livestock there (contrast Lev 25:32–34). Measurements controlling the amount of land available for such purposes are given. There are forty-eight cities in all, and these are named in Joshua 21. They include the six cities of refuge (to be discussed further in vv 9–34) and are to be given to the Levites on the basis of the strengths of the various tribes, the larger providing more such cities than the smaller.
That the priestly author should turn to this question at this point is entirely appropriate. He has just dealt with the arrangements for the division of the land among the various tribes in Num 34. Now is the moment to introduce his arrangements for the Levites. There is every likelihood that in including this material he is incorporating Levitical tradition (see Form/Structure/Setting). There was of course another Levitical tradition, preserved and adapted in Num 3–4, 18, which stressed that the Levites have no inheritance among the tribes. This tradition was strongly supported in Deuteronomy, and the author of Numbers was able to work it into his conception of the clerical hierarchy. What we have here is a subsequent provision, a later piece of Levitical tradition. Deuteronomy commended Levites to the care of the community, and the provision of cities to live in and land for their livestock is a natural solution. This latter Levitical tradition may have been a response to the problems posed by dispossessed Levites when the cult was centralized by Josiah. The possibility that Solomon was the first to initiate a policy of Levitical settlements cannot be precluded (see Form/Structure/Setting), but Deuteronomy itself remains silent on the subject, and it is only in the work of the exilic deuteronomists (Joshua 21) that the city list actually appears.
For the priestly author of Numbers the deuteronomic list in its original form in Josh 21 was the basis for his contribution here in Num 35:1–8. It gave him opportunity to fulfill two of his interests—the incorporation and adaptation of Levitical tradition, and the reinterpretation of deuteronomic material. The assigning of cities in Joshua’s lifetime is shown to be the product of a specific revelation to Moses. Moreover this traditional list of Levitical cities must be worked into his clerical hierarchy—with some cities granted to the sons of Aaron, and others to the three Levitical families which he has identified as the essential components of Levitical genealogy. The bulk of this reinterpretation comes in Josh 21 itself; here in Num 35:1–8 the author is content to suggest, in an idealized, way, the extent of the pasture land and above all to make it clear that the essential arrangements were fixed within the lifetime of Moses.
In the circumstances of his own time it was useful to the author to establish the principle of a significant Levitical presence in the provinces. This would have assisted their developing role as teachers in the post-exilic period (cf. 2 Chr 17:9). In general terms the section also helps to support a point made previously—that the clergy in general and the Levites in particular have a right to community support and to resources.
