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Deuteronomy 4:41-43 - Chapter 4:44—chapter 26:19. Summary

APPOINTMENT OF THREE CITIES OF REFUGE BEYOND JORDAN .

A short historical notice is here inserted, probably because it was during the interval between the first and second addresses of Moses that he carried into effect the Divine command to appoint cities of refuge for the manslayer ( Numbers 35:9 , etc.; cf. Exodus 21:13 ). This notice, therefore, is here in its proper place in the order of the narrative. That Moses should, just at this stage, have made this appointment was fitting and proper, seeing he had been urging on the people obedience to the Divine statutes and commandments, and had represented their conquest of the territory of Sihon and Og as an earnest of their ultimate possession of the whole land of the Amorites. By appointing these cities, Moses gave an example of obedience to God's injunction, and, at the same time, not only asserted on the part of Israel a right of proprietorship in this trans-Jordanic territory, but assumed as certain that, on the ether side of Jordan also, the same right of proprietorship should be possessed and exercised by Israel in the fulfilling of the whole law concerning cities of refuge (cf. Deuteronomy 19:1 , etc.). That this section belongs properly to Numbers 35:1-34 ; Numbers 36:1-13 ; and has been interpolated here by some later hand, is a pure assumption, for which there is no ground.

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