Question VI. How many cities of refuge, and of what kind?

Six cities of asylum are named in this ch. 20. But if at some time the borders of the Israelites should be extended farther, many think — as [is] indicated [at] Num. 35, before q. 7, in q. 8 & 11, [and by] Tostatus — that others were to be added to these, so that all [together] should be nine; because [in] Deut. 19:8 [it] is written: “But when the Lord thy God shall have enlarged thy borders, as he swore to thy fathers, and shall have given thee all the land which he promised them (yet [only] if thou keep his commandments, and do [the things] which I command thee this day, that thou love the Lord thy God, and walk in his way at all times) thou shalt add to thyself three other cities, and shalt double the number of the three aforesaid cities, that innocent blood may not be shed in the midst of the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, lest thou be guilty of blood.” But others deny any such addition of other cities. First: because [it] is nowhere read [to have been] done. Secondly: because the borders of the Israelites were never so enlarged that they dwelt, tribe by tribe, outside the trans- and cis-Jordanian region divided and given by Moses and Joshua, as [was] said [at] ch. 1, q. 9. Thirdly: because the cited passage of Deuteronomy does not compel us to [think] three cities [were] to be added. For Moses was speaking beyond the Jordan; and [he said] that in Canaan, when the Jordan should have been crossed, three cities of refuge [were] to be appointed (same ch. 19:2). But afterward he commanded [that] three others [were] to be added to these three, when the Lord should have enlarged the borders for the Israelites — that is, when [they] should hold not only those parts in which [they] were then dwelling beyond the Jordan, but [when], the Jordan [being] crossed, [they] should also have occupied the kingdoms of Canaan, and in that manner enlarged their borders. And that exposition is confirmed, because in that same place [there] is a little sum [subtotal] of those cities, and — [even] where the borders should also have been extended — only six cities are numbered. “Thou shalt add,” he says, “these other cities, and shalt double the number of the three aforesaid cities” — so that, to the three cities of refuge in Canaan, three others are commanded to be added; and this is here mentioned for this reason, because Moses had already treated of these three on the other side of the Jordan (Deut. ch. 4:41); now he treats of three others, and [so] indicates all [of them] together, finally, [as] six. “It is not,” says Abulensis in the cited question, “difficult to say [that] all the cities of refuge were only six — unless the common opinion were to the contrary, which is reasonable enough.” Rambam (vol. 4, tractate On Kings & Wars, ch. 11) seriously affirms [that] three other [cities] were never added to these six. “[It was] never done,” he says; “nor did the blessed God command anything in vain.” Yet he does not deny that in the Messiah’s time more [were] to be added. Perhaps this little disagreement could be briefly settled thus: [that] the cities of refuge were never more than six — as this 20th chapter, and Num. 35, explains — yet [that they] would have been nine, if [the Israelites] had most perfectly obtained the whole land owed to them, and had not, by sinning, straitened their [own] estates for themselves, as [was] expounded [at] q. 9, ch. 1. For therefore, [in] Deut. ch. 19:8, [the condition] seems [to be] so seriously added: “yet [only] if thou keep the commandments,” and the rest. And truly, if [they] could have obtained and inhabited the whole of that land divinely promised to them, by fullest right, why there [would] those of them who, besides

(col. 1217)

[…continued from col. 1216.] besides [their] intention and will, had shed some blood — why would [their] innocence and safety have been neglected and despised? Why would [there] have existed no asylums described and fixed [there], as in the other occupied parts of the land? Those, therefore, who reckon nine cities of refuge say what could have been; but those [who reckon] only six, what was. And so [does] Scripture [testify], and so St. Ambrose (ch. 2 On the Flight of the World): “Not idly does the number of six cities seem [to be] prescribed here — neither of more, nor of fewer.” (But how Arias gives 48 asylums to the Israelites will be said [in] the following chapter.)

2. But of these six cities, three, as I said, were beyond the Jordan, and three others on this side [cis]:

(Of Sichem: whether this [is], with Jerome & Eusebius, twofold [two distinct places]; or whether, with Masius — here Toletus, ch. 4 — or with John [the Evangelist], [it] is one and the same, was said in [commenting on] Genesis. Of Bosor: [it] alone [was] in a flat, but open and conspicuous, place.)

3. All [were] distant by an equal space (Deut. 19:3 & 7). I said “all,” so that not only the Cisjordanian [cities] [should be compared] among themselves, but [should] also be compared with the Transjordanian [ones] — so that [it] might be permitted, for those who had by chance slain someone on this side [of] the Jordan, to flee to the neighboring Transjordanian [city]. And thence that question is resolved: why in the Cisjordanian dominion — which, because [it] was larger than the Transjordanian, [one might expect to have more] — [there were] not more cities decreed for refuge than in the Transjordanian, as Tostatus rightly admonishes in the cited question; and so three equal thirds of the Cisjordanian land were reckoned, in which [there] were three asylums (Deut. ch. 19:2); [and] what was left over pertained to the Transjordanian [side]. 4. Almost all those cities were on mountains, so that [they] might be seen from afar, and — like lighthouses [Pharoses] — seem both to invite to themselves the fleeing involuntary manslayers, and (lest [the fugitives] should go astray, or — by asking about the way — betray or hand over themselves) [seem] to direct them. 5. Roads too had to be prepared and conveniently paved to them, lest [there] be anything which might obstruct their flight and safety (Deut. 19:3). Nay, [they] even say — Oleaster (Num. 35, p. 85) & the Rabbis — [that there] were, at the forks and crossroads, pillars [cippi] or posts, on which [there] was written “Miklot,” that is, “refuge,” so that the way to it might be shown. 6. Finally, all those cities were Levitical — but of this afterward. 7. Flight to these was granted not only to those who were Israelites by race and birth, but also to newcomers [advenae] and foreigners [peregrini] (Num. 35:15). Some think the “newcomers” are those who had been converted to Judaism, [and] the “foreigners,” those not converted; but that is not probable. First: because God, among the Jews, when they possessed [the land], was unwilling [that] Gentiles be tolerated, unless perhaps they should serve [in] servitude. How, then, would he establish a law concerning [persons] of this kind — who had not embraced Judaism — and endow them with a privilege? Secondly: the Hebrew words “Ger” & “thoschab” can be distinguished otherwise — so that each [word] signifies him who had come over from a foreign nation to the Israelitic religion, but “ger” [signifies] him who had come over now for the first time, or at least not so long ago; while “Thoschab” [signifies] him who had come over long ago, and [had] now dwelt for a long time among the Israelites, as Radak explains. And so are to be taken the Greek words of the 70: “ὁ προσήλυτος, καὶ ὁ πάροικος [ho prosēlytos, kai ho paroikos]” [“the proselyte, and the resident-alien”]. And this same [thing] is signified here (v. 9), when the word “ger” alone is put, which [word] alone generically denotes a foreigner and newcomer — whether he [arrived] just now, or arrived long ago. (See ch. 15 of the book On Herod.) But [there] is added, “who sojourns, or who dwells among you”: in the 70, “ὁ προσήλυτος, ὁ προσκείμενος ἐν αὐτοῖς [ho prosēlytos, ho proskeimenos en autois]” [“the proselyte, the one adjoined among them”]. The Rabbis, in Oleaster at the cited place, add other [things] — but little certain, and perhaps fabricated: namely, that those [cities] ought to be populous; [that] the manslayer had to be set to some craft, whereby he might be nourished; and then, if he were a student of the law, [that] he ought not to be deserted by his Rabbi or Master and Teacher; [and] if he himself were a Rabbi, [that] the whole school ought to come there with him; but [that], on the road, [there were] always two or three wise [men] joined to the fleeing manslayer as companions of the way; [and that] the mothers of the high priests sent gifts to exiles of this kind, lest they [the exiles], by their own prayers, hasten the death of those high priests. But let us leave these pleasant [tales] to the Rabbis themselves — [such] as [the claim] that [it] was not permitted, in these cities, to make or sell any weapons, ropes, or nets.