Day 80: Cities of Refuge (2026)

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Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Bible Any Year podcast where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible Any Year podcast is brought to you by ascension.

Using the great adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfold and how we fit into that story today.

It is day 80. It is the last day in desert wanderings and so we are concluding our reading of the books of numbers

and Deuteronomy. We are reading today from numbers chapter 35 and 36 as well as Deuteronomy chapter 34 just the last few words describing the death of Moses.

We're also praying the second Psalm of the cent which is Psalm 121. As always I am reading from the revised standard version, second Catholic edition using the great adventure Bible from ascension.

If you want to download your Bible Any Year reading plan you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible Any Year to get that.

You also can subscribe and your podcast app to receive the daily episodes. As I said we are concluding our books and concluding not only the books of numbers and Deuteronomy but also concluding the desert wanderings and tomorrow.

Gosh, tomorrow we're jumping into the period of conquest and judges. I don't know if you notice this. If you have downloaded that Bible Any Year reading plan you note that in less than 20 days we are having our first Messianic checkpoint which I am so excited about.

On day 99 we are having basically I think it's seven days of reading through the gospel of John. You know if we put off the New Testament and read it in order we wouldn't be reading anything in the New Testament I think until November and we do not want that we want to be able to encounter and hear the story of our Lord Jesus much much sooner.

So on day 99 coming up so soon we have our first Messianic checkpoint reading all the way through the gospel of John in just seven days and I am so excited about that but today we are concluding our desert wanderings with numbers chapter 35 and 36 and Deuteronomy chapter 34.

The Book of Numbers chapter 35. Cities for the Levites. The Lord said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho command the sons of Israel that they give to the Levites from the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in and you shall give to the Levites pasturelands round about the cities.

The cities shall be theirs to dwell in and their pasturelands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts.

The pasturelands of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall reach from the wall of the city outward a 1000 cuebots all round.

You shall measure outside the city for the east side 2000 cuebots and for the south side 2000 cuebots and for the west side 2000 cuebots and for the north side 2000 cuebots.

2000 cubits, the city being in the middle. This shall belong to them as pastor land for their cities.

The cities which you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall

permit the manslayer to flee. And in addition to them, you shall give 42 cities. All the cities which

you give to the Levites shall be 48 with their pastor lands. And as for the cities which you shall

give from the possession of the sons of Israel, from the larger tribes, you shall take many,

and from the smaller tribes, you shall take few, each in proportion to the inheritance which

it inherits. She'll give of its cities to the Levites. Cities of refuge. And the Lord said

to Moses, say to the sons of Israel, when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any

person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the Avenger,

that the manslayer may not to die until he stands before the congregation for judgment.

And the cities which you give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities

beyond the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan to be cities of refuge. These six cities

shall be for refuge for the sons of Israel and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them,

that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.

Concerning murder and revenge. But if he struck him down with an instrument of iron so that he

died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. And if he struck him down with a stone

in the hand by which a man may die and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death.

Or if he struck him down with a weapon of wood in the hand, but which a man may die and he died,

he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. The Avenger of Blood shall himself put

the murderer to death. When he meets him, he shall put him to death. And if he stabbed him from

hatred or hurled at him, lying in wait so that he died or an enmity struck him down with his hand

so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death. He is a murderer. The Avenger

of Blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. But if he stabbed him suddenly without

enmity or hurled anything on him without lying in wait or used a stone by which a man may die and

without seeing him casted upon him so that he died, though he was not his enemy and did not seek his

harm, then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the Avenger of Blood in accordance

with these ordinances. And the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the Avenger

of Blood. And the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, to which he fled. And he

shall live in it until the death of the High Priest who was anointed with the Holy Oil.

But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the bounds of his city of refuge,

to which he fled, and the Avenger of Blood finds him outside the bounds of his city of refuge,

and the Avenger of Blood slays the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood.

For the man must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the High Priest.

But after the death of the High Priest, the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.

And these things shall be for a statute and ordinance to you throughout your generations

and all your dwellings. If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence

of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover,

you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death,

but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of

refuge that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the High Priest.

You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land,

and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it except by the blood

of him who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell,

for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel.

Chapter 36

According to the word of the Lord, saying,

So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the

sons of Israel shall cling to his own inheritance. The daughters of Sloughahad did as the Lord commanded

Moses, from Mala, Thierza, Hogla, Milka, and Noah. The daughters of Sloughahad were married to the

sons of their father's brothers. They were married into the families of the sons of Manassah,

the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father.

These are the commandments and the ordinances which the Lord commanded by Moses to the sons of

Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 34, the death of Moses, and Moses went up from the plains of

Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pysca, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land,

Gilead, as far as Dan, all Naftali, the land of Ephraim, and Manassah, and all the land of Judah,

as far as the Western Sea, the Negev and the Plain, that is the valley of Jericho and the city of

Palm trees, as far as Oar, and the Lord said to him, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham,

to Isaac, and to Jacob, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes,

but you shall not go over there. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab,

according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab,

opposite Bethpeur, but no man knows the place of his burial to this day.

Moses was 120 years old when he died, his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated,

and the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days,

than the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him,

so the sons of Israel obeyed him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.

And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,

none like him for all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt,

to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the

great and terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel.

Psalm 121, Assurance of God's protection, a song of a sense.

I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The Son shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep you going out and you're coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you this day and every day for being

with us on this journey. We thank you for guiding us on this journey. Do these desert wanderings?

We thank you for your faithfulness because, Lord, you meet us in our weakness and you meet us in

our unfaithfulness, even in the small call to be faithful to hearing your word every single day.

Lord God, when we fail in that, today is our day 80. You, if we've failed a bunch of times,

this is day 80 of this journey through the Bible. And I'm so grateful, Lord, we are all so grateful

that you continue to guide us on this journey. And you continue to lead us. You continue to speak

to us and you continue to shape our hearts to be more and more like yours, to shape our vision of

you and of the world to be more and more like yours. Help us to see it like you. Help us to live

like you. Help us to love like you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So this concludes, wow, this concludes the desert

wanderings and this concludes the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. A couple of things just to highlight.

In Numbers chapter 35 and then in Numbers chapter 36, we have those cities for the Levi to remember

that the Levites don't get any land. And this is, it might be anti-climactic way to conclude

on the book of Numbers is looking at land, looking at boundaries, looking at cities for the Levites,

looking at murder and revenge and inheritance laws. But if we look back to the beginning of Numbers,

it was just Numbers. So it may be it's very fitting that we conclude the book of Numbers with just

some kind of instructions. If you remember, the tribes of Israel were all given an inheritance,

land, yet the Levites don't get land. And yet they had to live somewhere. And so they're given

48 cities. Six of those cities were what they call cities of refuge. And we talked about these

in the past, but just a reminder, those cities of refuge were put there because the consequence

essentially, the penalty for murder was the death penalty. Those cities of refuge were there

because they were often a case if someone had accidentally killed another person like man slaughter.

That's what they call the manslayer. Man slaughter resulted in the accidental death of another person

that someone could seek out vengeance. And yet here's God who says, no, no, no, not vengeance,

but justice. And so these six cities of refuge three across the Jordan River in the area of Moab

and three in the land of Canaan. Why? Because so they'd be close enough, basically for anyone,

to be able to flee to one of these cities of refuge so that they could be tried justly instead of

having mob justice or family justice or basically hot vengeance. And then you also have those laws

concerning murder and revenge. And it's so practical. It's so practical that it's actually

it's pretty edifying for me to look at this. How is it practical? Well, it says, how do you prove

if someone's murdered with intent or not, if someone's killed someone with intent or not? And

here at the book of numbers says, well, if you struck them down with iron or a rock or wood,

like if one person is another person with something made of iron or something made of wood or something

made of rock, they might have been intending a little bit more than just, you know, punching them

out. They probably were intending to kill the person. And there's something again, really practical

about that. Is it 100% foolproof? Absolutely not. But is it the beginning? Is it the beginning of

being able to learn how to discern between, okay, this was an accident. This was intentional.

This was manslaughter. And this was murder. And that's an attempt to do that. Not only that,

but we also have the law of justice. For example, if this is the crime of passion versus this was

relying in weight in order to kill the person, there's a difference there as well. Not only that,

but you also have the reality of having one or more witnesses. If there's only one witness,

the person shall not be found guilty on the testimony of one witness because we all know human

nature can desire to manipulate the truth and desire to give false testimony. So we're going to

see this as we move forward in the future when it comes to the Bible that there's a need for more

than one person to give testimony when the crime is a capital offense. And so there's just a lot of

wisdom that's been given to the people of Israel and to us at the end of this book of numbers.

Well, last thing about the book of numbers is concerning married women's inheritance. If you

remember, there was the man named Zlofahad and Zlofahad didn't have any sons. He only had daughters.

And the question was, does the property, where does the property go? Because usually the property

is transferred from father to son, not from father to daughter. So what happens here? Now that's

kind of a pickle because earlier on in the book of numbers, it says, yes, absolutely, those daughters

get the land of their father. But what happens if those daughters marry someone from a different

tribe? Then what happens is the husbands would get the inheritance. That would now be long to not

the tribe of the daughters. It would now be long to the tribe of the husbands. And that is a

messy, messy situation, if say you're from the tribe of Benjamin and you marry someone from the

tribe of Judah and all of a sudden your land is no longer belonging to Benjamin because

now it's belongs to the man who was of the tribe of Judah. And so Moses through the Lord comes up,

or the Lord through Moses comes up with this pretty ingenious solution. And the ingenious

solution is the women, the daughters, they get to marry whomever they want, they get to marry

anyone they want, but from their tribe. And it is, is it perfect? Of course, it's not perfect.

Is it a really wise and intelligent compromise knowing that here in the ancient world, this is how

inheritance is passed on and knowing that land is going to be so, so very important. And it's not

my property. It's not just my estate. It is my family's estate. And knowing, again, we talked about

yesterday, how we looked at the borders of the nation of Israel, the promised land, that this

is so important that this is the land that belongs to the people of Israel. This is the land that

belongs to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then what we would say is that land has to have some rules about

it. And again, we can look at it and say, well, that doesn't seem fair when it comes to who gets

what and how does land transfer from father to daughter, but not from daughter to their daughters or

their sons. And yet at the same time, this is a pretty wise compromise and a pretty wise discernment

of here is how we can solve this problem. That would be really, really tricky. And that's problem

is both honoring those daughters, saying you can marry whomever you want. Like you actually are

self determining in this. At the same time, we have to marry someone within your tribe because of

the very fact that the inheritance and the property is so important to the tribe. And I think

that's something that teaches us something not just about our marriages, but about life. And that

thing that it teaches us or reminds us is that we're not meant to live on our own. We're not meant to

be simply like individual automatized or I guess the word is atoms in the middle of this universe,

but we're united to each other and we belong to each other and their responsibilities. There's

rights that come with these relationships with other people. There's also responsibilities that

come with our relationship with other people. And we've heard that before, but I think it's good to

be reminded of this is that you know, Mother Teresa had said, maybe I've even quoted this already,

but Mother Teresa once said, one of the reasons we don't have peace is that we have forgotten that we

belong to each other. And there's something about the goodness and wholeness of saying, no, I'm part

of a community, I'm part of a family. And that means that I can't just do whatever I want. I have

some obligations and some duties. Now, obviously that can be corrupted, that can be manipulated, that

can be used and that can be misused. But for all of us, to be able to recognize that I don't just

belong to myself. I belong to the Lord and I belong to my family. I belong to my people and I

belong to the community. You know, here we are, this community, the Bible and your community. We

belong in some ways to each other. And that's why I keep asking us, like I said yesterday and the

day before to pray for each other. Please pray for me. I am praying for you. My name is Father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.