Numbers 35:34 “Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.’”
Have you ever had someone very important visit your home? What kind of preparations did you do before the event? If someone important were to stop by your home in the next hour, what would you spend time cleaning up before they arrived?
I live in a town where millionaires and at least one billionaire lives. They don’t live in my neighborhood, to say the least. Their neighborhoods are carefully manicured and restrictive to enter. The neighbors are expected to maintain a certain level of care for their homes and yards in order to not ‘bring down’ the value of the properties.
And there are rules about behaviors that are acceptable and not acceptable for residents. Home Owners Associations (HOA’s) spell out the expectations and the penalties for violations. Every now and again we hear about someone doing the unthinkable in an HOA community like putting up an American flag. How dare they! (Tongue in cheek)
Well, these types of laws are nothing new. As we read in our chapter today, special laws were set up to protect the inheritance of the tribe of Levi. They served as the workers supporting the priests in the Temple. They didn’t receive land allotted to the tribes of Israel when they came into the Promised Land. Instead, they were given cities with surrounding land scattered across all of Israel as their inheritance.
One of the roles of a few of the cities was to be temporary holding cities, cities of refuge. If someone killed another person unintentionally, they could flee to these cities and safely await trial. Those who acted on behalf of the dead individual had to await trial. These cities slowed down the process, allowing justice to be served.
There are those who today want to abolish the death penalty, completely eliminating this option from the judicial toolkit. But killing a murderer is justice by Scriptural mandates. And there is no way to get around it.
And our verse puts the LORD’s official seal on this situation. If justice in murder cases is not enforced, then the land itself gets polluted, defiled, dirtied. The land itself bears a burden that only justice can satisfy. And why is this?
Our text tells us. The reason murder defiles a land is simple. The LORD lives there and He can have nothing to do with the injustice of murder. Life is sacred. It is a gift from the LORD, so the LORD wants to protect that gift at all costs.
If we don’t honor Him as the author of life, if we allow murder to go unchecked, then the whole society reaps the negative consequences. The LORD wants to spare the society, so He commands that justice be upheld. He won’t allow HIs Name and reputation be dragged through the proverbial mud.
Now this chapter may sound harsh. But I hear a tremendous justice being offered. The cities of refuge allow for a deliberative process, eliminating revenge killings without all the facts. And even those people who are found not guilty live with the consequences of the accidental killing. Their lives are altered by the experience, for they must change residence following the verdict, for perhaps years.
And all these mercies extend from the presence of the LORD among His people. We still struggle for justice when someone is killed either intentionally or unintentionally. Just listen to the news!
The Arnold Journey 