Chapter 20 of Sefer Yehoshua is the halachic chapter of the book: after the conquest and the apportioning of the land were completed, the Holy One, blessed be He, commands Yehoshua to set apart the cities of refuge. The chapter opens with a phrasing that is rare among the prophets, transmits the laws of the unintentional killer, and lists the six cities: three on the western side of the Jordan and three on the eastern side. Let us proceed according to the order of the pesukim.
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל־יְהוֹשֻׁעַ לֵאמֹר׃ - And Hashem spoke to Yehoshua, saying.
Here is a singular pasuk. The Malbim says: we do not find in the words of the prophets after Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, the expression "And Hashem spoke to so and so, saying." Only Yehoshua merits language like "And Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying," and even with him this is the only place. The Sages already noted this and said: because these are matters of Torah. That is, the language of speaking and saying in prophecy is used when halachot are transmitted, and Torah, both written and oral, was not given to any prophet after Moshe Rabbeinu. "And Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying" means: transmit the following halachot. One could not say "And Hashem spoke to Yirmeyahu, saying" - which halachot would Yirmeyahu need to transmit?
But here, says the Malbim, halachot came that are not explained in the Torah, such as "and he shall speak his words in the ears of the elders of that city" - and not that their words should equal his words, from which the Sages learned that a city that is entirely killers does not provide refuge, and more. And since halachot were stated here, it says "And Hashem spoke to Yehoshua, saying," similar to what was transmitted to Moshe Rabbeinu.
דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר תְּנוּ לָכֶם אֶת־עָרֵי הַמִּקְלָט אֲשֶׁר־דִּבַּרְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶם בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה׃ - Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moshe.
The Radak says: after they inherited and divided the land, He commands them regarding the cities of refuge. For these cities were not commanded to them in the days of Moshe except after inheritance and settlement, "when Hashem your God cuts off." And indeed Moshe designated three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan, but they did not provide refuge until the cities in the land also existed, after conquest and division. Therefore precisely here: "Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge." And so too the Malbim: Israel is not obligated in setting apart cities of refuge except after inheritance and settlement, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, waited until the completion of the division of the land. They are called "cities of refuge" because they provide refuge for the killers, and there is no other place where the killer can find protection except this one.
לָנוּס שָׁמָּה רוֹצֵחַ מַכֵּה־נֶפֶשׁ בִּשְׁגָגָה בִּבְלִי־דָעַת וְהָיוּ לָכֶם לְמִקְלָט מִגֹּאֵל הַדָּם׃ - That a killer who strikes a person unintentionally, without knowledge, may flee there, and they shall be for you a refuge from the blood avenger.
The cities are a refuge from the blood avenger, who would pursue the unintentional killer in order to kill him. There is a dispute among the Sages about this: is it only permitted for him to kill him, or is it a mitzvah for him to pursue him in order to avenge the blood? The halacha holds that it is permitted for him, and not that it is a mitzvah for him, but there is an opinion that it is even a mitzvah for him, "for his heart is hot." If so, as long as the killer is outside the city of refuge, the blood avenger may, or is commanded, to kill him. But from the moment he is in a city of refuge, if he kills him he is liable with his life and is judged as a killer.
At first glance this sounds outrageous to us: how could it be permitted to pursue him and kill him, when he is an unintentional killer? But this question stems from the cheapening of human life that exists among us. Had we known what human life is and how precious it is, we would understand that the attitude toward a killer should be far worse, even when it is unintentional. And note: this is not speaking of one who was forced, for one who is forced is not in the category of an unintentional killer, and does not need to flee to the cities of refuge, and none of these laws apply to him. This is speaking of one who erred.
The greatest proof of just how negative the attitude is meant to be toward one who killed unintentionally: the Torah calls him "the murderer" over and over again - "the murderer shall flee," "the murderer who murders." All he did was let the axe slip from his hand without meaning to, and you call him a murderer, you attach that label to him? To us this is not comprehensible. But the Torah, which cherishes and values what human life truly is, establishes that one who did such a thing inadvertently is called a murderer.
Another proof: for the murderer they would mark the road with signs so he could run. For those making the pilgrimage, however, they would not put up signs directing how to ascend to Yerushalayim. Why? Because when people made the pilgrimage they wanted you to ask: how does one get to Yerushalayim? And when everyone asks, the second person is asked: what is in Yerushalayim? You are already the third one to ask me that today. There is a pilgrimage. This is what Elkanah, the father of Shmuel HaRamati, would do, and this is how people began to ascend for the pilgrimage. Do not put up signs, and do not give him a Waze that lets him go up without asking anyone. But for the murderer they did put up signs, because they did not want him to speak with anyone: you are a murderer, even your speech can cause harm, do not create environmental hazards - run to the city of refuge and stay there.
And see how terrible his punishment is: it could be an eighteen year old who drove his father's car carelessly and killed someone, and at that very time a young Kohen Gadol of twenty was anointed - he will spend his entire life in the city of refuge. We do not understand what a murderer does, and therefore we have difficulty and it seems to us that the matter is not proportionate. But had they understood what murder is, we would understand just how proportionate it is - to the point that the Torah commands the blood avenger according to one opinion, or permits him according to another opinion, to go and kill him. He is judged as a murderer whose sentence is death, for the thing did not happen in a vacuum.
And why is he called "the blood avenger" (goel hadam)? The Metzudat Tzion says: it is a term of redemption (geulah), because when he avenges the blood of the victim it is considered to him as a redemption - as if he redeemed the blood of the deceased.
And regarding "inadvertently, without knowledge," the Malbim says: in Parashat Masei it is written "inadvertently," and in Parashat Shoftim it is written "without knowledge," and Chazal expounded - "inadvertently" excludes the intentional, "without knowledge" excludes one who aimed. And therefore here both things are stated together.
וְנָס אֶל־אַחַת מֵהֶעָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וְעָמַד פֶּתַח שַׁעַר הָעִיר וְדִבֶּר בְּאׇזְנֵי זִקְנֵי־הָעִיר הַהִיא אֶת־דְּבָרָיו וְאָסְפוּ אֹתוֹ הָעִירָה אֲלֵיהֶם וְנָתְנוּ־לוֹ מָקוֹם וְיָשַׁב עִמָּם׃ - He shall flee to one of these cities and stand at the entrance of the city gate and speak his words in the ears of the elders of that city, and they shall gather him into the city to them and give him a place, and he shall dwell with them.
From the phrase "and they shall give him a place" Chazal learned that he should not have to rent a house all the days of his stay there - they must give him a place of their own, and not on rent. And what is "and he shall speak his words in the ears of the elders of the city"? The Metzudat David explains: that he tells them that his killing was inadvertent. "And they shall gather him" - even though they do not know whether the truth is with him, for it is not their job to clarify; the clarification is done in the court. For if it turns out that it was intentional they would put him to death at once, and the court must determine that it was indeed inadvertent and not under coercion and not intentional, and then this is his place.
וְכִי יִרְדֹּף גֹּאֵל הַדָּם אַחֲרָיו וְלֹא־יַסְגִּרוּ אֶת־הָרֹצֵחַ בְּיָדוֹ כִּי בִבְלִי־דַעַת הִכָּה אֶת־רֵעֵהוּ וְלֹא־שֹׂנֵא הוּא לוֹ מִתְּמוֹל שִׁלְשׁוֹם׃ - And if the blood avenger pursues after him, they shall not hand over the murderer into his hand, for he struck his fellow without knowledge and was not his enemy in times past.
When the blood avenger pursues - he is the relative of the victim who wishes to avenge his blood - to the city of refuge, the people of the city are forbidden to help him and to hand over to him the inadvertent killer. And the reason: "for he struck his fellow without knowledge" and was not his enemy. For if he had been his enemy, there would be a concern that perhaps he did it knowingly but was cunning and made it appear as if it were unintentional.
וְיָשַׁב בָּעִיר הַהִיא עַד־עׇמְדוֹ לִפְנֵי הָעֵדָה לַמִּשְׁפָּט עַד־מוֹת הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם אָז יָשׁוּב הָרוֹצֵחַ וּבָא אֶל־עִירוֹ וְאֶל־בֵּיתוֹ אֶל־הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר־נָס מִשָּׁם׃ - And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the Kohen Gadol who shall be in those days; then the killer shall return and come to his city and to his house, to the city from which he fled.
The order of events is as follows. First, the killer flees to a city of refuge, and from there the beit din sends messengers to bring him and set him up for trial, and it is forbidden to harm him until it becomes clear that he is indeed an accidental killer whose sentence is to sit in a city of refuge. If the beit din clarifies that he acted deliberately, with witnesses and warning, he is liable to death and they execute him. And if he was found liable to exile, he sits there until the death of the Kohen Gadol. It turns out that the pasuk here is stated concisely, packing everything together in one breath: "until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the Kohen Gadol." But the meaning is: first he stands before the congregation for judgment, and afterward he returns and dwells in the city until the death of the Kohen Gadol.
And why did the verse make his departure dependent on the death of the Kohen Gadol? Rabbi Meir says: a killer shortens a person's days, and a Kohen Gadol lengthens them, and it is not fitting that the one who shortens should be before the one who lengthens. The Kohen Gadol lengthens a person's days, for he stands in prayer on behalf of the people of Israel, and his merits are what protect us; while on the other hand the killer shortens a person's days. "Before" means moving about before him: here is the one who lengthens, and therefore you must flee to a city of refuge. As long as the one who lengthens a person's days is alive, you remain in the city of refuge; once the one who lengthens dies, the one who shortens may leave, for there will no longer be any problems.
And Rabbi gives an additional reason: the killer defiles the land and drives away the Shechinah, for murder diminishes the image and drives away the Shechinah, while the Kohen Gadol purifies and causes the Shechinah to rest upon a person in the land, and it is not fitting that this one should be alongside that one. The Kohen Gadol brings the Shechinah and the killer drives it away, therefore you must flee to a city of refuge and be tucked away there, so that the Kohen Gadol will not, as it were, be in his presence.
וַיַּקְדִּשׁוּ אֶת־קֶדֶשׁ בַּגָּלִיל בְּהַר נַפְתָּלִי וְאֶת־שְׁכֶם בְּהַר אֶפְרָיִם וְאֶת־קִרְיַת אַרְבַּע הִיא חֶבְרוֹן בְּהַר יְהוּדָה׃ - And they consecrated Kedesh in the Galil in the hill country of Naftali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiryat Arba, which is Chevron, in the hill country of Yehudah.
Here is a question that everyone asks: how can it be that the two and a half tribes received three cities, equal to the nine and a half tribes? There is no logic to dividing three cities within Eretz Yisrael among nine and a half tribes, and three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan among two and a half tribes.
Chazal say that on the eastern side of the Jordan there were many killers. But this is puzzling, for one who kills deliberately does not go into exile; and what does it mean that there were many accidental killings there? Rather, the explanation is as we have explained several times: an accidental mishap will never come to a person who is very careful about the matter. Whoever is very careful about a particular matter is saved from accidents in it as well. To whom do accidents happen? To one for whom the matter is treated lightly. When a thing is not important to us, we do not invest in it and we do not pay attention, and then, oops, we erred, an accident happened. But when the matter is dear and important to us and always before our eyes, we are very careful about it and accidents do not happen with it.
I once told you: most people who get electric shocks are not electricians, even though electricians work with electricity all day. Why? Because the electrician knows what electricity is. Before he touches anything he shuts it off, he turns off the main, he switches off from here, he checks with a tester whether any voltage remains, perhaps there is a feed from somewhere else; he backs himself up, because he knows that people die from electrocution. But an ordinary person ironing with bare feet on the floor, and suddenly, oops, he gets a shock. He has no awareness. When a person has awareness of something, accidents too will not happen to him.
And this is what is being told to us here: on the eastern side of the Jordan there were people to whom money was dearer than their children, "pens for our flocks" first, and only afterward "and cities for our little ones." From this you understand that human life was not among the things most precious in their eyes, and since that was so, it ultimately led to accidents as well.
This is one reason, but the Malbim brings here the words of the Ramban. The Ramban says that the cities of the Levi'im were also cities of refuge. The cities of the Levi'im were forty-two, and together with the six unique cities of refuge, that makes forty-eight cities. If we divide forty-eight cities among the twelve tribes, it comes out that each tribe receives four cities (four times twelve is forty-eight). According to this, two and a half tribes should receive exactly ten cities. And this was precisely their portion: three cities of refuge plus six cities of the Levi'im, ten cities. It turns out that the division was completely fair: out of forty-eight cities, ten on the eastern side of the Jordan for the two and a half tribes, and thirty-eight on the western side of the Jordan.
Yet the matter still requires understanding, for a city of refuge has an advantage over the cities of the Levites, even though both provide sanctuary. What is the difference? The Levite cities provide refuge only knowingly, while a city of refuge provides refuge both knowingly and unknowingly. In other words: a person who is an unintentional killer and passed through a city of refuge, even if he did not come there in order to be saved and perhaps did not even know it was a city of refuge, the blood avenger is forbidden to harm him. But if he passed through a Levite city without intending to be saved there, the blood avenger may kill him.
According to this, a difficulty still remains: on the eastern side of the Jordan, three cities provide refuge both knowingly and unknowingly, while six cities provide refuge only knowingly. On the western side of the Jordan, three cities provide refuge both knowingly and unknowingly, plus another thirty five Levite cities that provide refuge only knowingly. It turns out that there is no proportion between the two areas; the cities of refuge themselves should also have been divided logically. You say there are ten there, but of what do those ten consist? Three of them are cities of refuge, which is half of all the cities of refuge.
To this the Ramban answers: most of the Levite dwelling was in the Land, since their dwelling there was more fitting because of the service of the House of God. That is, the reason there were three cities of refuge on the eastern side of the Jordan is not that more cities of refuge were needed there, but that the Levite cities were more numerous here in the Land. Proportionally, more Levite cities had to be placed here and fewer there, and consequently this caused there to be more cities of refuge in their place there. For it is logical that the Levites should dwell in the Holy Land because of the service of the House of God, and we will see shortly that they were even close to the place of the Temple; and since this is so, the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged that the cities designated as cities of refuge would be in their place on the eastern side of the Jordan, so that the Levite cities would be more numerous here on the western side of the Jordan, close to the place of the Temple.
וּמֵעֵבֶר לְיַרְדֵּן יְרִיחוֹ מִזְרָחָה נָתְנוּ אֶת־בֶּצֶר בַּמִּדְבָּר בַּמִּישֹׁר מִמַּטֵּה רְאוּבֵן וְאֶת־רָאמֹת בַּגִּלְעָד מִמַּטֵּה־גָד וְאֶת־גּוֹלָן בַּבָּשָׁן מִמַּטֵּה מְנַשֶּׁה׃ - And beyond the Jordan, east of Jericho, they assigned Betzer in the wilderness, in the plain, from the tribe of Reuven; and Ramot in the Gilad from the tribe of Gad; and Golan in the Bashan from the tribe of Menasheh.
Here the verse speaks of the three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan. "They assigned" - Rashi explains: in the days of Moshe. These are the cities that Moshe Rabbeinu prepared in advance, and even though they did not provide refuge until the cities in the Land were also prepared, nevertheless Moshe Rabbeinu was among the zealous who hasten to fulfill mitzvot, and he went and prepared these cities.
אֵלֶּה הָיוּ עָרֵי הַמּוּעָדָה לְכֹל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכָם לָנוּס שָׁמָּה כׇּל־מַכֵּה־נֶפֶשׁ בִּשְׁגָגָה וְלֹא יָמוּת בְּיַד גֹּאֵל הַדָּם עַד־עׇמְדוֹ לִפְנֵי הָעֵדָה׃ - These were the designated cities for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them, that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there, and he shall not die by the hand of the blood avenger until he stands before the congregation.
What is "the designated"? Rashi explains: an expression of appointing - the cities designated for this, which were designated and appointed for this purpose. Radak, and the Malbim also explains this way, understand that "the designated cities" are the cities to which all those who unintentionally killed a person would gather. Just as we say of the cemetery that it is "the house of gathering for all the living" - and what festival or holiday is there in a cemetery? Rather, "moed" here is an expression of gathering. And this follows the pattern of "musadah," as in "the foundations of the beams": musadah, muadah, on the same pattern.
"Until he stands before the congregation" - the Metzudat David says: that is, for judgment, that they would judge him to determine whether he is liable or not. And if it became clear that he was not liable to death but needed to be exiled to a city of refuge, he would return to the city of refuge, and the blood avenger could no longer put him to death.
Chapter 20 opens with the phrase "And Hashem spoke to Yehoshua, saying" - a phrase of transmitting Torah, because it contains laws that are not explained in the Torah. After inheritance and settlement, Israel was commanded to set aside six cities of refuge, which would provide sanctuary to the unintentional killer from the blood avenger: he stands at the gate, speaks his words to the elders of the city, and receives there a place of his own and not by rental. At first he stands before the congregation for judgment, and if it became clear that he was liable to exile, he sits until the death of the Kohen Gadol, for it is not right that the one who shortens a person's days should stand before the one who lengthens them, and it is not right that the one who removes the Divine Presence should be near the one who brings the Divine Presence. Three cities were set apart in the Land - Kedesh, Shechem and Chevron, and three across the Jordan - Betzer, Ramot and Golan. And according to the Ramban, the division was fair within the reckoning of the forty eight cities, and the greater number of cities of refuge across the Jordan stemmed from the fact that the dwelling of the Levites was more fitting in the Holy Land. And above all, the chapter taught us the preciousness of human life: one to whom this matter is not precious will ultimately find that even unintentional sins come to his hand.