3. Cities of Refuge

5. Joshua 20:1-6  
1  Then the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying,  2  "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'Designate the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses,  3  that the manslayer who kills any person unintentionally, without premeditation, may flee there, and they shall become your refuge from the avenger of blood.  

6. 4  'He shall flee to one of these cities, and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and state his case in the hearing of the elders of that city; and they shall take him into the city to them and give him a place, so that he may dwell among them.  5  'Now if the avenger of blood pursues him, then they shall not deliver the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor without premeditation and did not hate him beforehand.

7. 6  'He shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the manslayer shall return to his own city and to his own house, to the city from which he fled.'"

8. Examples & Instruction
1Co 10:11  Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

9. Shadows & Substance
Col 2:16-17  Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

10. Shadows & Substance
Heb 10:1  For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

11. A place to flee
Exo 21:12-14  "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.  13  "But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee.  14  "If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.

12. The role of Levi
Exodus 32:26-28  then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me!" And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him.  27  He said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.'"  28  So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day.

13. The role of Levi
Numbers 25:6-13  Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting.  
7  When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand,  

14. 8  and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked.  9  Those who died by the plague were 24,000.  10  Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,  

15. 11  "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy.  12  "Therefore say, 'Behold, I give him My covenant of peace;  13  and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.'"

16. Defiled & Polluted
  Numbers 35: So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.  34  'You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel.'"

17. The avenger of blood
 Deu. 19:1-13 "When the LORD your God cuts off the nations, whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses,  2  you shall set aside three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to possess.  3  "You shall prepare the roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the LORD your God will give you as a possession, so that any manslayer may flee there.

18. 4  "Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live: when he kills his friend unintentionally, not hating him previously—  5  as when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle and strikes his friend so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live;  

19. 6  otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer in the heat of his anger, and overtake him, because the way is long, and take his life, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously.  7  "Therefore, I command you, saying, 'You shall set aside three cities for yourself.'  8  "If the LORD your God enlarges your territory, just as He has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which He promised to give your fathers—  

20. 9  if you carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in His ways always—then you shall add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.  10  "So innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and bloodguiltiness be on you.  

21. 11  "But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,  12  then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.  13  "You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

22. The death of the high priest
Numbers 35:26-28  'But if the manslayer at any time goes beyond the border of his city of refuge to which he may flee,  27  and the blood avenger finds him outside the border of his city of refuge, and the blood avenger kills the manslayer, he will not be guilty of blood  28  because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest the manslayer shall return to the land of his possession.

23. Christ our High Priest
Heb 3:1  Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession;
Heb 9:11  But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;

24. Christ our High Priest
Hebrews 6:18-20  so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.  19  This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil,  20  where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

25. Christ our High Priest
Romans 8:1  Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.