Deuteronomy 19:13

Only by such action on the part of the local authorities and the kinsmen of the murdered man can the guilt of the crime be removed from the whole nation. To this extent the ancient custom of the vendetta is recognised as part of the theocratic system.

thou shalt put away See on Deuteronomy 13:5 (6).

that it may go well with thee Another recurrent phrase; Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 5:16; Deuteronomy 5:29, etc.

Additional Note: The Vendetta, -the one element of jurisprudence in the wild life of the desert," springs from, the simple principle of blood for blood, still valid in the law of Israel, Genesis 9:6. Its moral effects are twofold and contrary. On the one hand it is a restraint upon manslaughter, the possibilities of vengeance which it lets loose engendering reluctance to take life except in self-defence. On the other, when once a man has been slain, there is no chance of a fair trial for the slayer; though his deed may have been an accident he may have to atone for it with his life; while the excitement of whole families and tribes to avenge it is a fertile source of disorder and of war, which may last and has lasted for a century. The duty of the vendetta extends sometimes to the third sometimes to the fifth degree of kinship, but among the Sinai Arabs to the sixth from the grandfather down (Jennings Bramley, PEFQ1907, 135). Hence even in the wildest parts of Arabia there arose the right of sanctuary in any tent from which it was claimed, and the respite was used for the investigation of the case, and even in cases of wilful murder for the arrangement of some compromise financial or otherwise between the slayer and the kinsmen of the slain. In these negotiations the tribal authorities would often intervene. But even this has been found insufficient to secure order and justice, and wherever a central authority has been established among the Arabs one of its first efforts has been to control and regulate, or even to abolish, the vendetta. For modern examples the Wahabees, Mohammed -Ali, the Russians in the Caucasus and the Sublime Porte see Von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Pers. Golf. Similarly in Israel. The earlier law (as we have seen) gave sanctuary at every altar of Jehovah. When only the One Altar remained the opportunity came to modify the whole consuetudinary law; the vendetta was not abolished but controlled by the rights of sanctuary in certain accessible cities and by the interference of the local authorities. These provisions, apparently first made by D and elaborated in P, secured a fair trial and the acquittal of the innocent slayer; but they do not allow any such compromise, financial or otherwise, as frequently takes place among the Arabs between the wilful murderer and the kinsmen of his victim. In Israel the wilful murderer must die. Such distinctions of Israel's system from the customs of her Semitic neighbours, involving as they do both a greater humanity in one direction and a greater severity in the other, are of the highest ethical interest.