Deuteronomy 19

The people of Israel were greatly blessed. They had the Lord God for their King, a wonderful land for their home, and a holy law for their guide, and yet they faced some of the same problems that society faces today. Sinful human nature being what it is, nations will always have to deal with “man’s inhumanity to man,” because the heart of every problem is still the problem of the heart. Laws are necessary to bring order to society, to restrain evil, and to help control behavior, but laws can never change the human heart. Only the grace of God can do that. If this section of Scripture emphasizes anything, it’s that God holds human life precious and wants us to treat people fairly, for they are made in the image of God (Gen. 9:1–7). God’s desire for all nations is, “Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5: nkjv). And His standard for us individually is Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier called justice “the hope of all who suffer, the dread of all who wrong.” That’s the ideal, but it isn’t always achieved in real life. Without justice, society would fall apart, anarchy would take over, and it wouldn’t be safe for people to leave their homes. Israel didn’t have the elaborate police system we have today, so locating and punishing guilty criminals depended primarily on the elders and the judges. By singling out the “cities of refuge,” the Lord promoted justice in the land.

The cities (vv. 1–3, 7–10). Moses here reviews what he had taught Israel in Numbers 35; in fact, he had already set up the three cities of refuge east of the Jordan (Deut. 4:42–43). It would be Joshua’s responsibility to set up the other three cities west of the Jordan after Israel had conquered the land (Josh. 20). Those east of the Jordan were Golan, Ramoth, and Bezer, and on the west, they would be Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron. If you consult a map of the Holy Land, you will see that these cities were so located that they were easily accessible to those who needed protection. The roads leading to these cities were to be kept in good repair and be clearly marked. Rabbinical tradition states that there were signs at all the crossroads pointing the way to the nearest city of refuge. The Lord wanted to make it easy for the innocent manslayer to escape the vengeance of angry people.

The Lord also made arrangements for the nation to add three more cities of refuge if the borders of their land were expanded. He had promised Israel a large land (Gen. 15:18; Ex. 23:31), and if they had obeyed His law, He would have kept His promise. It was only during the reign of David that this much territory was actually held by Israel, and then they lost it when things fell apart during Solomon’s reign. If we don’t obey God’s will and claim God’s promises, we can never receive all that God wants us to have.

The manslayer (vv. 4–6). Modern law still follows Moses in making a distinction between murder and manslaughter (Ex. 21:12–14; Lev. 24:17). The person who unintentionally killed someone could flee to the nearest city of refuge and present his case to the elders there. If he didn’t flee, a member of the victim’s family might chase him down and become “the avenger of blood” and kill him. Israel had no system for locating and arresting suspected criminals; it was left to the family of the victim to see that justice was done. The “avenger of blood” wasn’t given authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner; he was only to hand the accused over to the proper officers. But if this relative was angry, he might take the law in his own hands and kill an innocent man. By fleeing to the city of refuge, the manslayer was safe until the facts of the case could be examined and a verdict declared. If found innocent, the manslayer was allowed to live safely in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. Even though he was innocent, he still paid a price for accidentally killing another human being. If he left the city of refuge, his life was in danger and the elders couldn’t protect him.

These cities of refuge illustrate our salvation in Jesus Christ to who we have “fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18), but they do so by contrast. The man who fled in Israel did so because he wasn’t guilty of murder, but we flee because we are guilty and deserve to be judged. Nobody has to investigate our case because we know we have sinned and deserve God’s punishment. In the case of the cities of refuge, the innocent man was allowed to live, but in our case, Jesus Christ the innocent One was condemned to die. The Israelite had to remain in the city of refuge, for if he left it he might die at the hand of the avenger. The salvation we have in Christ isn’t conditioned on our obedience but depends wholly on His grace and promises. “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10: nkjv). “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). The Israelite manslayer could legally leave the city of refuge after the death of the high priest, but our High Priest in heaven will never die and ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25).

The murderer (vv. 11–13). But perhaps a man who had murdered his enemy would flee to a city of refuge and lie to the elders, telling them that he was innocent. It was up to the elders in his home city to set the record straight by sending to the city of refuge and bringing the man back to his native city. The elders in the city of refuge would extradite the accused so he could be properly tried and, if found guilty, executed. God expected each citizen to be concerned about seeing that justice was done in the land. It would be easy for the officers in the murderer’s home city to let the elders in the city of refuge worry about the case, but that wouldn’t promote justice or prevent the defilement of the land. In the nation of Israel, shedding innocent blood defiled the land, and one way to cleanse the land was to punish the offender. “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it” (Num. 35: niv).

Murder was one of several capital crimes in Israel. Others were idolatry and sorcery (Lev. 20:1–6), blasphemy (24:10–16), violating the Sabbath (Num. 15:32–36), willful and repeated disobedience to parents (Deut. 21:18–21; Ex. 21:15, 17), kidnapping (Ex. 21:16), bestiality (22:19), homosexuality (Lev. 20:13), adultery, and the rape of an engaged maiden (Deut. 22:22–27). We don’t have this many capital crimes today, but Israel was a theocracy and her laws were God’s laws. To break the law was to sin against the Lord and defile the land, and the people needed to understand the seriousness of such actions. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional but then reinstated it in 1976. Capital punishment may not restrain every would-be murderer from taking a life, but it does magnify the preciousness of human life as well as honor the law.

The thief (v. 14). After Israel conquered the land of Canaan, each tribe was assigned its territory and their borders accurately described. Joshua, Eleazar the high priest, and the heads of the twelve tribes cast lots and made the assignments (Josh. 14:1–2). Within the tribes, each family and clan would make its own claim and mark it out with boundary stones. In that day, officials didn’t draw detailed real estate maps, what we today call “plats.” Everybody was expected to honor the landmarks (boundary stones), because to move the stones meant to steal land from your neighbors and their descendants (Prov. 22:28). Unscrupulous officials could easily exploit poor widows and orphans and take away their land and their income (Prov. 15:25; 23:10–11). Since God owned the land and the people were His tenants, moving the stones also meant stealing from God, and He would punish them (Hos. 5:10). No wonder this crime was included among the curses announced from Mount Ebal (Deut. 27:17).

The punishment of the murderer reminded people that human life is precious, and the punishment of the thief reminded them that personal property must be respected. “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. 20:15) covers much more territory than just forbidding a thief to enter a house and take what isn’t his. Extortion is also stealing (Ps. 62:10), and God condemns officials who make unjust laws so they can rob the poor and the helpless (Ezek. 22:29). Slanderers and false witnesses rob people of their good name (Deut. 19:16–19; Matt. 15:19–20), and a good reputation is more difficult to restore than stolen merchandise.

The liar (vv. 15–21). Every system of justice depends on people knowing the truth and speaking the truth. To bear false witness is to break God’s commandment (Ex. 20:16) and to undermine the foundation of the legal system. The person who swears to tell the truth and then tells lies is committing perjury, which itself is a serious crime. The Jewish law required two or three witnesses to establish the guilt of an accused person (Deut. 17:6; Num. 35:30), and both Jesus (Matt. 18:16) and Paul (2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19) applied this principle to local church discipline. The fact that two or three persons bear witness doesn’t guarantee that they are telling the truth (1 Kings 21:1–14), but Moses warned that false witnesses would be punished with the same punishment they wanted for the accused.

However, there could be situations where only one witness stands up to accuse a person and he is a false witness. What then? Both the accused and the single witness would have to go to the central court at the sanctuary and present the case to the priests and the judges there (Deut. 17:8–13). If the court discovers that the single witness is not telling the truth, he would receive the same sentence that would have been given to the accused if he had been guilty. This law would make liars think twice before falsely accusing an innocent person. Having to go to the priestly court would be deterrent enough, for the Lord could convey His truth to the priests and judges and expose the wickedness of the accuser. But knowing that they might receive the punishment they wanted for the accused would also make them hesitate, especially if it were a capital crime. “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who speaks lies shall perish” (Prov. 19:5, 9 nkjv).

We sometimes hear that fear of punishment doesn’t deter people from breaking the law, but Deuteronomy 19: says otherwise: “And those who remain [the rest of the people] shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you” (nkjv). Every law on the books has probably been violated many times and not all violators have been arrested and tried. But that doesn’t prove that the prosecution of those who have been caught hasn’t done society good and prevented more crime. Some legal experts argue that capital punishment hasn’t stopped people from committing capital crimes, but how do they know? The speed laws haven’t stopped careless people from driving beyond the speed limit, but the fact that they have radar detectors in their cars suggests that they don’t want to meet the police! And think of how dangerous the highways would be if there were no speed laws!

Moses closed this section by reminding the people that in every case, the punishment must fit the crime (v. 21; see Ex. 21:23–25). This is known as the lex talionis, which is Latin for “the law of retaliation.” People who call this principle “barbaric” probably don’t understand what it means. The sentence must be neither too strict nor too easy but must be suited to what the law demands and what the convicted criminal deserves. Honest judges don’t give a murderer the same sentence they give the man who poisoned his neighbor’s cat, nor is a shoplifter given the same punishment as a kidnapper. This judicial principle emphasized fairness and humane treatment at a time in history when punishments were terribly brutal. In eighteenth-century England, there were over 200 capital crimes, and a person could be hanged for picking pockets. Children who broke the law were frequently treated as adults and imprisoned for minor offenses.

When our Lord referred to the lex talionis in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:38–42), He wasn’t talking about the official judicial system but how believers should deal with personal offenses and injuries. He didn’t rescind the Old Testament law, because He came to fulfill it (vv. 17–20); rather, He prohibited His followers from “paying back in kind” those who offend them or take advantage of them. If our courts followed our Lord’s commands found in verses 38–42, the country would be in the hands of the criminals! Jesus exhorted us not to practice personal revenge but to leave such matters in the hand of God (Rom. 12:17–21). We’re to imitate the Master and return good for evil, love for hatred, and sacrifice for selfishness (1 Peter 2:11–25).