Numbers 35:25

Delivered. Hebrew, "the multitude shall deliver the slayer." It seems the judges pronounced sentence, according to the votes of the people assembled; (Calmet) or the plurality of voices among the 21 judges decided the matter. (Grotius) (Haydock) --- High priest. This mystically signified that our deliverance was to be effected by the death of Christ, the high priest and the anointed of God. (Challoner) --- He rescued us from the hand of the revenger, the devil. (Theodoret, q. 50, 51.) --- Before his death, the way of our true country was not open, nor secure. (St. Gregory, hom 6. in Ezec.) (Worthington) --- By this law, Moses shewed a horror for murder, and the respect due to the person of the high priest, during whose life even the involuntary murderer was obliged to keep himself retired in a city of refuge. (Masius) --- At the death of the pontiff, all Israel put on mourning, so that private injuries were to be forgotten, when the public had such cause for sorrow; and in the mean time the vengeance of kinsmen would relent. (Maimonides; More. iii. 40.) --- Murder was punished by the Greeks, in the days of Homer, with banishment, though sometimes this was remitted by the relations, for a sum of money. (Iliad ix.) (Calmet)