Joshua 20:5

5 If the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand; because he struck his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him before.

Joshua 20:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 20:5

And if the avenger of blood pursue after him
To the city of refuge, whither he is fled, and demand him:

then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hands;
to be slain by him, but shall protect him:

because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not
beforetime; (See Gill on Numbers 35:22), (See Gill on Numbers 35:23), and (See Gill on Deuteronomy 19:6).

Joshua 20:5 In-Context

3 that the manslayer who kills any person unwittingly [and] unawares may flee there: and they shall be to you for a refuge from the avenger of blood.

4 He shall flee to one of those cities, and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city; and they shall take him into the city to them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.

5 If the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand; because he struck his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him before.

6 He shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the manslayer return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from whence he fled.

7 They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill-country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah.