Numbers 35:32

32 Neither should you accept a ransom for the person who flees to his city of refuge, allowing him to return and live in the land before the death of the [high] priest.^[a]

Numbers 35:32 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 35:32

Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled
to the city of his refuge
Though for killing a man unawares:

that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the
priest;
the high priest; such a man's liberty was not to be purchased with money, nor even his life to be bought off, should he be taken without his city; a great ransom could not deliver him from the avenger, because he was guilty of this law, which so wisely and mercifully provided for him; and consequently guilty also of great ingratitude to God, as well as of a breach of his law, and of disrespect to his high priest, under whom he was protected.

Numbers 35:32 In-Context

30 "If anyone kills a person, the murderer is to be put to death based on the word of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death based on the testimony of one witness.

31 You are not to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of killing someone; he must be put to death.

32 Neither should you accept a ransom for the person who flees to his city of refuge, allowing him to return and live in the land before the death of the [high] priest.

33 "Do not defile the land where you are, for bloodshed defiles the land, and there can be no atonement for the land because of the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

34 Do not make the land unclean where you live and where I reside; for I, the Lord, reside among the Israelites."

Footnotes

• [a]. Sam, LXX, Syr read high priest