Numbers 35:29-34

29 These things shall be perpetual, and for an ordinance in all your dwellings.

30 The murderer shall be punished by witnesses: none shall be condemned upon the evidence of one man.

31 You shall not take money of him that is guilty of blood, but he shall die forthwith.

32 The banished and fugitives before the death of the high priest may by no means return into their own cities.

33 Defile not the land of your habitation, which is stained with the blood of the innocent: neither can it otherwise be expiated, but by his blood that hath shed the blood of another.

34 And thus shall your possession be cleansed, myself abiding with you. For I am the Lord that dwell among the children of Israel.

Numbers 35:29-34 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 35

Though the tribe of Levi had no part in the division of the land, yet cities out of the several tribes are here ordered to be given them to dwell in, to the number of forty eight, Nu 35:1-8, six of which were to be cities of refuge, Nu 35:9-15, but not for wilful murderers, in whatsoever way they might kill a man, Nu 35:16-21, but for such who had killed a man unawares, Nu 35:22-24, and several rules are given relating to such persons, Nu 35:25-29, but no satisfaction was to be taken in case of murder, nor to excuse a person's return to his own house before the death of the high priest, who had fled to a city of refuge, that so the land might not be defiled, Nu 35:30-34.