Joshua 20:7-9

The Selection of the Cities of Refuge

7. And they appointed Rather, they sanctified, set apart for a sacred purpose. The Cities of Refuge were intended to preserve the People and the Land of Jehovah from blood-guiltiness. Hence the appointment to so high a purpose carried with it also the idea of solemn consecration. "They seuerden," Wyclif translates it in the first edition, "thei ordeyneden" in the later edition. The cities selected were three on either side of the Jordan, almost equally remote from each other,

(a) On the West.

(b) On the East.

1. Kedesh, in Naphtali.

1. Golan, in Bashan.

2. Shechem, in Mount Ephraim.

2. Ramoth-Gilead, in Gad.

3. Hebron, in Judah.

3. Bezer, in Reuben.

It requires only to look at the map to see how wisely these spots were marked out, so as to make a "City of Refuge" easy of access from all parts of the land. They were chosen, it will be observed, out of the priestly and Levitical cities, as likely to be inhabited by the most intelligent part of the community. According to Maimonides, all the forty-eight Levitical cities (enumerated in the next Chapter) had the privilege of asylum, but these six cities were required to receive and lodge the homicide gratuitously.

Kedesh was the most northerlycity on the West. See above, Joshua 12:22.

in Galilee In that part of the province afterwards called "Galilee." This name which in the Roman age was applied to a large province, seems to have been originally confined to a little "circuit" or "region" Galil, Galilah, Galilæaround Kedesh-Naphtali, in which were situated the twenty towns given by Solomon to Hiram, king of Tyre, as payment for the transportation of timber from Lebanon to Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:11).

Shechem was the central city on the west of the Jordan; see above, ch. Joshua 8:30; and ch. Joshua 17:7; in Mount Ephraim. See above, ch. Joshua 17:15.

Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron The most southerly of the selected cities on the west; see above, ch. Joshua 10:3; Joshua 14:15.

in the mountain of Judah On this mountain-district, see above, ch. Joshua 11:21.