Daily Bible Reading YLT March 19th

The huge number of Levites who will serve God are provided for by the sons of Israel. Their food is from the offerings to God and in Chapter 35 of Numbers God commands that they are provided with 48 cities, including 6 cities of refuge, and areas of grazing land around them of a specific measurement, two thousand cubits east, south, west and north of each city.Imagine that a nation was so served by those whom God calls His how great the influence of Godly people would be on the whole community of the nation!The provision of cities of refuge is unique among civilisations: that someone who has killed a person unawares, without enmity, hatred or lying in wait, may flee to and must remain there until he faces judgement by the company, as to whether he is a murderer or a manslayer. The one found to have killed without planning in advance, without hatred, without planning in advance, not using a weapon or killing in enmity must remain in the city of refuge until the council judges him and if found not to have murdered, must remain in the city of refuge until the chief priest at that time dies. There is no atonement possible for him. This is a limitation on their freedom for an unknown length of time, a form of imprisonment but also a safe place from the revenge which can be carried out by a manslayer for if he leaves the safety of the city, then they can justly be killed by the redeemer of blood who will not be guilty of their death because the limits of their imprisonment had been set and the manslayer ignored them.The one found to have murdered, as evidenced by using an instrument of metal or wood or stone against another, as also in killing in enmity or hatred, planning their death in advance, will lose his life. No single witness may testify against a person to die.How much more justice would be served if we took God's righteous and just laws as our own legal system. Note how the sanhedrim, the high priests, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law, hated Jesus, planned his death in advance with enmity, could not find two witnesses to agree in testifying against him to die, could not accuse him of murder deserving of death, nor did they meet their own conditions of a just trial, for it was conducted during the night, with no 24 hour interval which a person accused of a crime with a death penalty was entitled to under Jewish law, but was delivered over to the Roman governor before day started, for a death by iron nails through his body nailed to a wooden cross.Pilate rightly said that he found no fault in Jesus.Peter rightly told the people who gathered at Pentecost to hear him speak that they had murdered Jesus. "And ye profane not the land which ye are in for blood profaneth the land; as to the land it is not pardoned for blood which is shed in it except by the blood of him who sheddeth it, and ye defile not the land in which ye are dwelling, in the midst of which I do tabernacle, for I Jehovah do tabernacle in the midst of the sons of Israel." Numbers 35: 33,34No atonement was possible for the murderer or the manslayer. The city of refuge where the Sanhedrim remained in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. The blood of those shedding blood paid the price of pardon.