Towns for Levites and Cities of Refuge

(Book of Numbers 35:1 - 35:15)  
While the Israelites were camped on the plains of Moab by the River Jordan across from Jericho, Jehovah told Moses, "Command that the Israelites give the Levites towns in which to live from their inheritance of land.  Also give them pasturage surrounding the towns.  The Levites must have their towns to live in and pastures for their cattle and other livestock.  The pastures given to the Levites must extend 1000 cubits from the town wall in every direction.  With the town at the center, measure, on each side, east, south, west, and north, 2000 cubits.  This will comprise the pastureland for the town.

"Among the towns that you grant the Levites should include the 6 cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone by accident may safely flee.  In addition to them, the Levites should be given 42 towns.  In all, 48 towns, with surrounding pasture lands, should be given to the Levites.  These towns will come from the land granted to the other Israelite tribes.  The larger tribes will give more towns to the Levites, the smaller tribes, fewer. Each tribe will be obliged to give in proportion to the amount of land it owns."

Jehovah told Moses, "Instruct the people of Israel that when they cross the Jordan into Canaan, they must designate certain cities as sanctuaries where those who have killed someone accidentally may find refuge.  These cities will furnish protection from those who may wish to exact vengeance and execute the inadvertent killer before he may be tried by the community.  Designate 6 cities of refuge for your people, 3 east of the Jordan and 3 west of the Jordan in Canaan.  These cities may be used not only by Israelites, but also by resident aliens or traveling merchants; anyone who accidentally kills someone may seek refuge there.

Notes
1. All the tribes are obligated to set aside towns for the use of the Levites, whose population, therefore, will be sprinkled throughout the lands occupied by the Israelites.  One assumes that they will be needed locally for religious duties, and also that they will constitute a separate population beholden to the hierarchy of their own tribe, rather, one supposes, like the medieval Catholic priesthood. 

2. Although the account is confusing, if not contradictory, it seems the layout of the Levite towns and pasturage was this, an allotment of land 4000 cubits (6000 feet) square with a town 2000 cubits (3000 feet) square in the center.  Outside the town is the pastureland, surrounding the town at a distance of a 1000 cubits (1500 feet).   This may seem good "on paper," but it makes no allowance for growth.  And is every Levite town to be exactly the same size?

3. The necessity for the cities of refuge reveals the conflict at that time between primitive traditions of personal revenge, honor killings, and blood oaths on the one hand and the institution of a national justice system based upon codified law on the other.  The cities of refuge are needed to forestall the hot-blooded seekers of vengeance, so that the legal system can have time to pass judgment.  Replacing revenge with justice, substituting the aggrieved individual or family acting as an avenger with a communal body objectively determining guilt and inflicting punishment according to law, is a huge advancement in human history.  The Hebrew concepts of justice, though, were not unique, but would have acquired by the Israelites from their contact with the Babylonians and later, the Egyptians, both of whom developed credible legal systems a millennium earlier.

4. While there is proportionality in where the Levite towns are to be located, more among the larger tribes and fewer among the smaller tribes, there is no such proportionality in placement of the cities of refuge: 3 cities are to be located west of the River Jordan and 3, east of the river, where there are only 2 1/2 tribes.  Was more trouble to be expected from those rowdy and restive Reubenites?