And the Lord spoke to Josue, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them:
2 Appoint cities of refuge, a of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses:
3 That whosoever shall kill a person unawares may flee to them: and may escape the wrath of the kinsman, who is the avenger of blood:
4 And when he shall flee to one of these cities: he shall stand before the gate of the city, and shall speak to the ancients of that city, such things as prove him innocent: and so shall they receive him, and give him a place to dwell in.
5 And when the avenger of blood shall pursue him, they shall not deliver him into his hands, because he slew his neighbour unawares, and is not proved to have been his enemy two or three days before.
6 And he shall dwell in that city, till he stand before judgment to give an account of his fact, and till the death of the high priest, who shall be at that time: then shall the manslayer return, and go into his own city and house from whence he fled.
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7 And they appointed Cedes in Galilee of mount Nephtali, and Sichem in mount Ephraim, and Cariath-Arbe, the same is Hebron in the mountain of Juda.
8 And beyond the Jordan to the east of Jericho, they appointed Bosor, which is upon the plain of the wilderness of the tribe of Ruben, and Ramoth in Galaad of the tribe of Cad, and Gaulon in Basan of the tribe of Manasses.
9 These cities were appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the strangers, that dwelt among them: that whosoever had killed a person unawares might flee to them, and not die by the hand of the kinsman, coveting to revenge the blood that was shed, until he should stand before the people to lay open his cause.
Ambrose of Milan
“There remains … what Scripture says concerning the death of the chief priest, "that the homicide shall be in the city of refuge even to that time, until the high priest dies." In this passage the literal interpretation causes difficulty. First, the period of flight is limited by chance rather than by any consideration of fairness; further, in like cases the result is unlike. For it could happen that the high priest might die on the day after the homicide took refuge. However, what is the meaning beneath the uncertainty? And so, because the letter causes difficulty, let us search for spiritual meanings. Who is that high priest but the Son of God, the Word of God? We enjoy his advocacy in our behalf before the Father, for he is free from every offense, both willed and unintentional, and in him subsist all things which are on earth and which are in heaven. For all things have been bound by the bond of the Word and are held together by his power and subsist in him, because in him they have been created and in him all God's fullness dwells. And so all things endure, because he does not allow what things he has bound to be loosened, since they subsist in his will. Indeed, so long as he wills, he keeps all things in check by his command and rules them and binds them by a harmony of nature. Therefore the Word of God lives, and he lives most of all in the souls of the holy, and the fullness of the Godhead never dies. For God's everlasting divinity and eternal power never die. To be sure, he dies to us if he is separated from our soul, not that our spirit is destroyed by death, but that it is loosened and stripped from union with him. Yes, true death is the separation of the Word from the soul. Thereupon, the soul begins at once to be open to sins of volition.”
Jerome
“For the very words of Scripture indicate that even ignorance is a sin. [Thus], also, Job offers burnt offerings for his sons, [in the event] they may have sinned unwittingly in thought. And, if a man is killed by the iron of an axe that flies off the handle when a man is hewing wood, the wood hewer is ordered to flee to a city of refuge and remain in that place until the death of the high priest, that is to say, until he is redeemed by the blood of the Savior, either in the house of baptism or by repentance, which supplies the efficacy of the grace of baptism through the ineffable mercy of the Savior who does not wish anybody to perish. Nor does he find his delight in the death of sinners, but rather that they be converted from their way and live.”