Laws Concerning Murder and Revenge

(Book of Numbers 35:16 - 35:34)
"If someone strikes another person with a metal weapon and the blow results in death, then that constitutes murder and the murderer must be executed.  If someone wields a stone and strikes another person with it so as to cause his death, then that is murder and the murderer must be executed.  Or, if someone strikes and kills another person with a wooden object, that is also murder and the murderer must be executed.  The blood avenger is the one charged with putting into effect the sentence of death.  When the avenger encounters the murderer, he is obliged to kill him.  Also, if someone with evil intent shoves a person or throws something at him so that death results, or if with malice he strikes a person with his fist so that he dies, then a murder has been committed and the murderer must be executed.  In these cases as well, when the blood avenger encounters the murderer, he must put him to death.

"But if, without malicious intent, someone pushes another person, or throws something that hits another person unintentionally, or while handling a stone, drops it by accident upon another and death ensues, he was not his enemy and intended him no harm.  Therefore, the community should intervene between the killer and the blood avenger and, according to this law, it must protect the inadvertent killer from the blood avenger and allow the killer to return in safety to one of the cities of refuge, where he must remain until the death of the current high priest (he who has been anointed with the holy oil).  However, if the killer strays from the confines of the city of refuge to which he has fled and the blood avenger finds him outside the city, the avenger may kill him and not be guilty of murder.  The killer must remain within the city of refuge until the death of the high priest; only then may he return home.

"These legal provisions you should observe from generation to generation, irrespective of where you may live.  All  murders must be sentenced to death, but only on the testimony of witnesses.  And no one should be sentenced to death on the testimony of a single witness.  No ransom should be accepted for the life of a murderer sentenced to death: all murderers must be executed.  Nor should ransom be accepted for one who has fled to a city of refuge, allowing him to return home before the death of the current high priest.

“Do not pollute the land in which you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land.   The land cannot be purified from the blood shed upon it save with the blood of the one who has shed it.  Therefore, defile not the land on which you live -- and where I live as well, for I live among the children of Israel."

Notes
1. Insights into the Hebrew criminal justice system furnished by the Bible are fascinating, but not always as enlightening as one would wish.  Murder is here well define, an act not only directly causing the death of another human being, but motivated by malicious or murderous intent.  The means by which death is brought about is immaterial.  Here, though, there are only references to acts of violence that cause death.  There is, for instance, no discussion of other means of death, such as having one drink poisoned well water or abandoning one to die in the desert.  Murder is not committed when the death is accidental and there was no criminal intent on the part of the killer.  It is strongly implied, however, that, traditionally, a murderer was anyone who caused the death of another, regardless of intent or possession of a guilty mind; if you killed someone unintentionally it was just as bad as if you had willfully murdered him.  There is thus this conflict between traditional values and Jehovan law.  The latter does not entirely override the former, but accommodates it.  The cities of refuge are a means of preserving the lives of those who kill unintentionally and by accident, but the custom of blood vengeance is still in force: the unintentional killer may be safe in the city of refuge, but if he should leave it, he is subject to the death at the hands of a blood avenger, presumably a family member of the victim.  (Taking personal vengeance, as a common practice, could hardly said to have died out until the 20th Century -- think Wyatt Earp.)  Avenging a murder does not seems to constitute murder in Jehovan law, unless the avenger violates the sanctuary of a city of refuge.

2. It is curious that the life or death of the high priest should have any effect on the status of unintentional killers in sanctuary.  There was probably a custom of a universal amnesty at the death of the high priest.  One wonders what problems this might have caused.  Might not someone decide to commit a murder when he learns the high priest is on his death bed?  And wouldn't those holed up in a city of refuge and eager to go home be tempted to arrange the murder of the high priest?

3. Forbidden is the practice of ransoming, or buying your way out of murder sentence, a just provision that prevents the wealthy man from having the license to kill whomever he wishes and then merely paying a fine, like dropping money into a swear jar.

4. Here the basic moral philosophy in regard to murder is, "an eye or an eye," murder being avenged and cleansed by another murder, basic justice.  There is no consideration of fostering guilt in the murderer, of moving him to remorse and repentance, expiation and compensation.  Perhaps such concepts are too sophisticated for the times.