Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2621
“Then you shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee there, who kills any person at unawares.” Numbers 35:11.
YOU are aware that the principle of blood-revenge is a deep-seated one in the Eastern mind. From the earliest ages it was always the custom with the Orientals, when a man was murdered, or slain without malice aforethought, for the nearest relative, his heir, or any person related to him, to take revenge for him upon the person who, either intentionally or unintentionally, was the means of his death. This revenge was a very special thing to the Oriental mind. The avenger of blood would hunt his victim for 40 years—yes, until he died, if he was not able to reach him before—and would be on his trail all his life, that he might slay him. It was not necessary that the manslayer should have any trial before a judge— his victim was dead and if the one who killed him was not put to death, it was reckoned among some tribes to be legitimate to kill his father, or indeed any member of his tribe—and until someone in that tribe was put to death, as a revenge for the man who had been slain, by accident or otherwise, a deadly feud existed between the two clans which never could be quenched except by blood.
Now, when the Lord gave to the Jews this Law concerning the cities of refuge, he took advantage of their deep-rooted love towards the system of the revenge of blood by the nearest relative. God acted wisely in this, as He has done in all things. There are two matters mentioned in Scripture which I do not believe God ever approved, but which, finding they were deep-seated, He did not forbid to the Jews. One was polygamy, the practice of marrying many wives had become so established that, though God abhorred it, yet He permitted it to the Jews because He foresaw that they would inevitably have broken the commandment if He had made an ordinance that they should have but one wife. It was the same with this matter of blood-revenge—it was so firmly fixed in the mind of the people that God, instead of refusing to the Jews what they regarded as the privilege of taking vengeance upon their fellows, enacted a Law which rendered it almost impossible that a man should be killed unless he were really a murderer, for He appointed six cities, at convenient distances, so that when one man killed another by accident, and so committed homicide, he might at once flee to one of those cities. And though he might have to remain there all his life, yet the avenger of blood could never touch him, if he were innocent. He would have a fair trial, but even if he were found innocent, he must stay within the city into which the avenger of blood could not, by any possibility, come. If he went out of the city, the avenger might kill him. He was, therefore, to suffer perpetual banishment, even for causing death accidentally, in order that it might be seen how much God regarded the rights of blood and how fearful a thing it is to put a man to death in any way. You see, dear Friends, that this prevented. the likelihood of anyone being killed who was not guilty of murder, for, as soon as one man struck another to the ground by accident, by a stone, or any other means, he fled to a city of refuge. He had a head start from the pursuer and if he arrived there first, he was secure and safe.
I wish to use this custom of the Jews as a metaphor and type to set forth the salvation of men through Jesus Christ our Lord. I shall give you, first, an explanation and, then, an exhortation.
I. I SHALL ATTEMPT AN EXPLANATION OF THIS TYPE. Note, first, the person for whom the city of refuge was provided. It was not a place of shelter for the willful murderer—if he fled there, after a fair trial he must be dragged out of it and given up to the avenger. And the avenger of death was to kill him and so have blood for blood, and life for life. But, in case of an accident, when one man had slain another without malice aforethought and had, therefore, only committed homicide, the man fleeing there was perfectly safe.
Here, however, the type does not adequately represent the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is not a refuge provided for men who are innocent, but for men who are guilty—not for those who have accidentally transgressed, but for those who have willfully gone astray! Our Savior has come into the world to save not those who have, by mistake and error, committed sin, but those who have fearfully transgressed against well-known Divine Commandments and who have followed the sinful dictates of their own free will, their own perversity leading them to rebel against God.
Note, next, the avenger of blood. In explaining this portion of the type, I must, of course, take every part of the figure. The avenger of blood, I have said, was usually the next of kin to the one who had been slain. But I believe any other member of the family was held to be competent to act as the avenger. If, for instance, my brother had been killed, it would have been my duty, as the first of the family, to avenge his blood, if possible, then and there —to go after the murderer, or the man who had accidentally caused his death—and to put him to death at once. If I could not do that, it would be my business and that of my father and, indeed, of every male member of the family, to hunt and pursue that man until God should deliver him into our hands so that we might put him to death. I mean not that it is nowour duty, but it would have been so regarded under the old Jewish dispensation. It was allowed, by the Mosaic Law, that those who were the relatives of the man killed would be the avengers of his blood.