Numbers — Chapter 35

Six cities of refuge for involuntary manslayers, three on each side of the Jordan, among the 48 Levitical cities; the Levites as sacred mediators administer the right of asylum.

The city of refuge protects the involuntary manslayer until his case is judged by the congregation; the blood-avenger may not touch him within its walls. The rule of law and due process even for the guilty.

The manslayer must remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest who was anointed with holy oil; after that he may return freely to his own land.

Defile not the land you inhabit, which is stained with blood; the land cannot be expiated of blood shed therein, except by the blood of him who shed it. The gravity of bloodguilt and the lex talionis as a moral foundation.