out and delivered up to the avenger of blood (Deu 19:11-12). Then follow, in Num 35:22-28, the proceedings to be taken with an unintentional manslayer, viz., if any one hit another “in the moment,” i.e., suddenly, unawares (Num 6:9), without enmity, or by throwing anything upon him, without lying in wait, or by letting a stone, by which a man might be killed, fall upon him without seeing him, so that he died in consequence, but without being his enemy, or watching to do him harm. In using the expression בּכל־אבן, the writer had probably השׁליך still in his mind; but he dropped this word, and wrote ויּפּל in the form of a fresh sentence. The thing intended is explained still more clearly in Deu 19:4-5. Instead of בּפתע, we find there בּבלי־דעת, without knowing unintentionally. The words, “without being his enemy,” are paraphrased there by, “without hating him from yesterday and the day before yesterday” (i.e., previously), and are explained by an example taken from the life: “When a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron slippeth (נשׁל Niphal of שׁלל) from the wood (handle), and lighteth upon his neighbour.”
verses 24-25
In such a case as this, the congregation was to judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood, according to the judgments before them. They were to rescue the innocent man from the avenger of blood, to bring him back to his (i.e., the nearest) city of refuge to which he had fled, that he might dwell there till the death of the high priest, who had been anointed with the holy oil.
verses 26-28
If he left the city of refuge before this, and the avenger of blood got hold of him, and slew him outside the borders (precincts) of the city, it was not to be reckoned to him as blood (דּם לו אין, like דּמים לו אין, Exo 22:1). But after the death of the high priest he might return “into the land of his possession,” i.e., his hereditary possession (cf. Lev 27:22), sc., without the avenger of blood being allowed to pursue him any longer.
In these regulations “all the rigour of the divine justice is manifested in the most beautiful concord with His compassionate mercy. Through the destruction of life, even when not wilful, human blood had been shed, and demanded expiation. Yet this expiation did not consist in the death of the offender himself, because he had not sinned wilfully.” Hence an asylum was provided for him in the free city, to which he might escape, and where he would lie concealed. This sojourn in the free city was not to be regarded as banishment, although separation from house, home, and family was certainly a punishment; but it was a concealment under “the protection
