Joshua 20                                                          

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Joshua 20:1 The Lord also spake unto Joshua, saying,

2 Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:

3 That the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.

• Unwittingly = unknowingly

4 And when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.

5 And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime.

6 And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled.

• The cities of refuge, being cities of the priests, bore the sin of the manslayer.
• What the high priest was to the Levites, the Levites were to the nation.
• On the Day of Atonement, therefore, all the sins of the nation came into his hand.
• On his death he was freed from the Law and those whom he represented were freed also.
• Roman 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
• Another way of putting this would be, once a man is dead, he is absolved from the claims of sin.
• Romans 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
  10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
  11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
• Hebrews 7:23 And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death:
  24 But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.
  25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

7 And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.

• Appointed = Separated, and thus sanctified

8 And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.

9 These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation.

• Exactly 2520 years from the exile of Benjamin, Iceland became an independent nation.

 

•  The first tribe to be conquered by the Assyrians was Manasseh, in 745 B.C. Exactly 2520 years later America became a nation on July 4, 1776.

 

• Study the book: Abrahamic Covenant, (A study outline of the identity of God's people) By E. Raymond Capt - page 25