Joshua 20:5

And if. Or, "and when." Deliver . Literally, cause to shut up ( συγκλείσουσι , LXX ), implying the completeness of the deliverance, from which no escape was possible. And hated him not before time. Daun, cited in Keil's Commentary here, remarks on the difference between the Jewish law of sanctuary and that of the Greeks and Romans. The former was not designed to save the criminal from the penalty he had deserved, but only the victim of an accident from consequences far exceeding the offence. The Greeks and Romans, on the contrary, provided the real criminal with a mode of escape from a punishment which he had justly merited.