Numbers 33-35

God’s message to me: Capital punishment is not in violation of God’s law. This has been repeated a couple of times now beginning with Cain and Able and being made clear to Noah after the flood. If a man spills the blood of another then that man’s blood will be shed by man. A fancy way of saying that if you kill someone society has the right to have someone kill you. In this passage God clarifies the concept with rules of evidence, degree of the crime and an appeals process.

Promises: Everyone has an inheritance. While the Levites were not given a tribal homeland they were granted cities and common lands within the territory of the other tribes which were under their control as an inheritance. This ensured that representatives of the priesthood and temple workers were available to all the people of the land without having to travel long distances to a central location of the tribe. This land belonged to the tribe of Levi as an inheritance and could not be taken even as the tribal lands of the other tribes belonged to them forever.

Commands: Keep a record. This command applied directly to the people of the time and ensured a written record of events. This record is known as the Bible and, more specific to this instance, the Torah or the first five books of the bible commonly called the books of Moses.

Timeless principles: The court of Appeal for homicide. The crime of homicide includes anything which causes a human being to die as the result of another human beings actions. This is the charge brought against a person who kills an intruder in their home. “Justifiable Homicide” is the finding for police officers and civilians who kill a person in the course of protecting themselves or others. Murder is unjustifiable and intentional homicide. Vehicular manslaughter is criminal killing with a vehicle while vehicular homicide includes accidental killing with a vehicle. These concepts date to the time of the Exodus and beyond.

When a person killed another they could not be convicted without the testimony of at least 2 witnesses. Conviction didn’t necessarily include a court. If there were 2 witnesses to state that a murder had occurred the “avenger of blood”(a family member or other person close to the victim)was duty bound to hunt down and kill the murderer. Someone who killed another would be wise to flee to a city of refuge. The avenger would come to the city council and present the evidence of the killing. The council acted as an appellate court to decide if the killing was an accident or a murder. If they decided accidental then the killer could take refuge in the city to avoid death. If they found him guilty of murder they would turn the killer over to the avenger who would kill him.

How can I apply what I’ve learned: Understand that God ensured we would have an accurate written record of these events. Accept that the concept of this being an oral tradition subject to interpretation and mistakes is a lie. Remember that this is God’s word and that God made certain we would have it, in it’s entirety and in accurate form.

Remember that the entire bible, and not selected passages, constitutes God’s view of things. You shall not commit murder doesn’t mean we can’t execute certain criminals or that we should not go to war.

more to learn for in-depth study: Numbers33:2 “Now Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of the Lord. And these are their journeys according to their starting point:” I know I harp on this subject a lot but many of the people who were most influential in my youth still believe this is an inaccurate history based on oral traditions. These are people who have been in the church for most of their life and have taught the bible to others. These are people who have been Christians for a very long time and still undermine their own testimony by not knowing the truth. God ordered that this be kept as a written record and Moses wrote it down. There is plenty of archaeological evidence that writing such a cuneiform existed at least from the flood and possibly before. Written accounts of the history that predated Moses were likely to exist, particularly starting with Joseph as the prime minister of Egypt. Even so, The number of generations through which the tradition would have been passed coupled with the number of years each generation had to ensure it’s accurate transmission and combined with the tradition of creating the histories in verse and in songs to ensure accurate memorization minimizes any chance of inaccuracy. Taken with the fact that the bible has proven accurate enough to hold up under legal and historical scrutiny better than any other document of Antiquity and this theory of inaccurate transmission fails completely.

We will go over the path of the Exodus in a separate entry since it will take some time and space I’d rather not waste while preparing the usual study.

Fun Fact: Levite cities existed in every tribal area. These cities were surrounded by a buffer zone of just over 5 1/2 miles that were left to the Levites control. An area stretching to just under 3 miles from the city was considered common land for the Levites to keep their livestock and farms.

tomorrow: Numbers 36