Joshua 20:1-9 - True Sanctuary Cities

Joshua 20:1-9

The Cities of Refuge (Numbers 35:9–28; Deuteronomy 19:1–13)

1 The LORD also spoke to Joshua, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Appoint for yourselves cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, 3 that the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood. 4 And when he flees to one of those cities, and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declares his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city as one of them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. 5 Then if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. 6 And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.’”

7 So they appointed Kedesh in Galilee, in the mountains of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba (which is Hebron) in the mountains of Judah. 8 And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on the plain, from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh. 9 These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwelt among them, that whoever killed a person accidentally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.

The true sanctuary cites were for taking refuge when accused or suspected of committing a capital crime, namely murder.  They were definitely not for other criminals to hide persecution for lesser offenses as we see today with illegal immigration to shelter those hiding from accountability to the laws of the land.  These are therefore not issues of welcoming strangers as some would say Leviticus 19:33-34 means.  That passage dealt with immigrants who had a place there under the laws of that land in that time; in our time in this land which is not a theocracy, there are immigration laws to follow to be equally welcomed when entering into the land and its society.  If we were to impose the concept of sanctuary cities on our society out of that context, then it would be as if we were to take care of every widow and stranger as Deuteronomy 10:18-19 says when we read in 1 Timothy 5:3-4, 9-10 which puts rest of need and propriety on such care.  There, this passage on cities of refuge was a unique application of justice similar to current laws protecting the accused murderer until guilt or innocence is determined by law.  The accused is now kept in custody of a jail cell to avoid vigilante vengeance of an avenger by family, friends, or even a community lynch mob, but not in a special city as before in Israel.  It is not a case for other illegal activities nor to avoid facing justice.  It was solely for protection of accused murderers to lat justice determine if it was intentional and punishment would be given, or if it was unintentional as manslaughter was proven to protect the innocent until proven guilty or not.  Even in Israel the accused had to first present his case to be allowed to enter the refuge city and was not granted asylum automatically; he had to have a case to the law to enter for protection first, just as modern day asylum seekers should also do to be granted entry and protection and then treated as a welcome stranger to become a citizen of the land as in Leviticus 19:33-34.  It is interesting that the accused manslaughter innocent of murder was only allowed to stay until the reigning judge (high priest) died, then he had to leave to where he came from.  Another aspect or principle to consider in our modern day similar situations.  To sum it all up, true sanctuary cities were for refuge, not evasion of breaking laws, and our misinterpretation and misapplication of these scriptures to our societies is not wise nor justifiable as Christian ethics.