We have seen before, that it was the intention of the Law, that the Levites, devoted to their public functions, and endowed with a competent revenue from a public provision, should possess no landed property for purposes of agriculture, but should dwell together in walled cities, each making a kind of University, within the precincts of the several tribes.* The latter arrangement is now specially prescribed. Moses is directed to ordain, that, when the distribution of territory comes to be made, forty-eight cities, each with a sufficient space of suburbs for necessary grazing-ground, shall be assigned for the habitations of the Levites, the number of those cities to be assessed among the tribes in proportion to the extent of their several districts.†

Of these Levitical cities, six are to have the character of Sanctuaries, or, as they are called, "cities of refuge

design of a deliberate distribution, may be thought to confirm my observation (p. 392) on Numb. xxvi. 52–56. The list of princes is given in nearly the same order in which the settlements of the tribes were afterwards disposed from south to north (compare Josh. xv - xix); a fact which may be thought to indicate, that the general arrangement had already been determined. But of this, more, hereafter.

* See pp. 306 (note), 322, 362.

† Numb. xxxv. 1-8. There has been much question respecting the apparent discrepance between verses 4, 5. I propose to reconcile it by simply rendering pane one (5), instead of "ye shall measure from without the city," ye shall measure outward for the city; that is, outward from a central point. From this central point, there would then be a measurement of two thousand cubits each way, for a square, (of about two thousand four hundred yards to a side,) including both city and suburbs, while the interior square (with a side of half that length), would leave suburbs of the dimension described in verse 4. I think the words will well bear the sense which I have put upon them, though it must be owned, that the received translation is not objectionable, except as it presents a discrepance, where it is not natural to look for one. Le Clerc ("Commentarius" ad loc.) presents a view according with this in the result, but obtained by an interpretation of the word 'p, which I suppose cannot be sustained; and Lowman ("Civil Government of the Hebrews," p. 109), comes to the same conclusion by another process, which is liable to the same objection.

from "the avenger of blood"; a provision, which brings to our view, in one important aspect, the relation of the next of kin, as it existed among the Hebrews. With them, that relation had a much greater importance than belongs to it among us, and even than that which is attached to it by the Civil Law. If a man fell into poverty, so as to betake himself to servitude, or part with his land, the Law presumed that his next relative would desire to interpose to liberate his person, or disencumber his estate, and invested him with rights for that purpose.* In like manner, if he had suffered a pecuniary wrong, his kinsman succeeded to his claim to restitution.† In the passage before us, we find him exhibited as being placed, by the sentiments of the time, under an obligation of mischievous tendency, which it was the object of the Law to enfeeble, and eventually to destroy.

It is a dictate of nature, for those to be each other's champions, who are allied in blood. In a cultivated state of society, great part of the protection, which they mutually owe, is assumed by the law of the land. In a rude condition, on the contrary, this championship naturally takes the form of retaliation on the part of the survivor of one who has suffered violence. For what security they have, independent of their personal prowess, men depend in great part, on the general understanding, that their death will not be unavenged; and the urgency of the case erects the obligation of the surviving relative to exact life for life, into the strictest point of honor.

All early antiquity presents references to this practice,

* Lev. xxv. 25-28, 47-53. The conditions on which either of these steps was to be taken, are sufficiently explained in the context of these passages, as treated above, on pp. 304-306.

+ Numb. v. 8.

as far as it has records to exhibit them; and it is constantly found among barbarous races at the present day. What is particularly to our purpose, it existed anciently, and exists now, in full force, in the regions near to Palestine.* The Law of Moses, finding it among the Jews, dealt with it with that wisdom, which it is necessary to use with an established point of honor, against which penal inflictions always prove powerless. It could no more be broken down by such provisions, than the practice of duelling at the present day. Not carrying the public sentiment with them, they would fail to be executed, and the exposure of their practical inefficiency would increase the motive to their violation; while, on the other hand, the severer they were made, the greater would be the apparent hazard of infringing them, and accordingly the greater the distinction so acquired. Under such circumstances, the very executioner of the law would himself become a certain mark for the "avenger of blood."

Of the Arabs, says D'Arvieux, ("Travels in Arabia Deserta,” p. 145,) "There is no hatred among them, but on account of blood, and that is irreconcilable. For example, if a man has killed another, the friendship between their families and all their posterity is broken. ..... If they happen to be in some common interest, or there is any match to propose, they very civilly answer, 'You know there is blood between us; it can never be done; we have our honor to preserve.' They never pardon till they are revenged." "Les Persans," says Chardin, ("Voyages en Perse" &c., Tome III., p. 417,)" et tous les autres Mahometans, se conforment là-dessus absolument à la loi Judaïque, remettant à la fin du procès, le meurtrier entre les mains des plus proches parens du défunt." Father Lobo testifies to the same practice in Abyssinia ("Voyage to Abyssinia" &c., p. 57). "If a man is unlawfully killed," says the Koran, (Sura xvii. verse 35,) "we give to his nearest relation the right of revenge." But the notion is by no means to be called Oriental.

"If I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall be,"

says the child of the Border Chief, in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel"; and there is no rule more rigidly observed among our North American Indians.

What the Law (its office being education, not miraculous change,) was incapable of effecting or promoting by direct menaces, it aimed to bring about by a course corresponding with the opinions and feelings which produced the occasion for its interference. It did not tell the representative of a slain Jew, that, under pain of its displeasure, he must disgrace himself in the eyes of all his countrymen, by allowing the author of his friend's death to go unharmed. But it declared, that, after pursuing him within the protection of the Levites, in an appointed place, he had done all that honor demanded, and all that religion allowed. He had saved reputation, and now he must abstain from sacrilege. Arrived there, the slayer was entitled to a legal investigation of his act; and, if ascertained to have been guilty, the "avenger" obtained all his right, with the Law's own allowance and aid. If an acquittal of malicious intention followed, still if the asylum were abandoned, before the death of the high-priest, (an uncertain time, but one likely to be long enough to suffer the excited feelings of the avenger to cool, as well as for reflection to come to his aid and that of those who might be urging him on, and even for their thirst for revenge to be in some measure satisfied by what was a virtual imprisonment,) there was nothing then to prevent him from pursuing his intended victim, who, through such negligence, had forfeited the protection extended by the Law.*

Numb. xxxv. 9-34.- For the original simple outline of this law, see Ex. xxi. 12-14. - The primitive sense of the word translated "avenger" (1, 12,) has been the subject of much discussion. Pointed as we have it, it is the active participle of, to redeem; and I conceive that it is best so understood. The Goel was called so from his right of redemption, (Lev. xxv. 25, 48,) though that was but one of his offices."Ye shall give three cities" &c. (14); the cities were to be thus scattered over the country, in order that, whenever occasion occurred for their pro

The institution of sanctuary, for persons guilty of a criminal or questionable act, was thus turned to the best account for the ends of public justice. He who, having stained his hands with blood, had sought the protection of a "city of refuge," had by no means placed himself in a situation to defy the Law. He was only safe there until he could be brought to "stand before the congregation in judgment." Should circumstances (the principles for estimating which, are described in some detail,) then be found to indicate that the assault had been malicious, he was brought out to abide the vengeance of him to whom his life became forfeit. Should it prove that the fatal blow had been only accidental, that sentence declared his life inviolable, provided he continued to claim the protection offered, till the high-priest should die; the Law aiming to enforce a salutary caution against all occasions of fatal accident, by subjecting even the unintentional destroyer of life to the serious inconvenience of a long separation from his home.

*

The last regulation recorded in this book, is consequent upon one, of which we read a few chapters further back. The effect of the law, that, when there were no sons, daughters might inherit land, would have been, that, if they married into another tribe, the territorial possession of their own would have been transferred to that into which they were adopted. Solicitous about such a result, the heads of the tribe, to which those females belonged, at whose solicitation the previous rule had been arranged, represented the inconvenience, which would follow, to Moses, who was directed to provide against it by ordaining,† that heiresses should not

tection, there might always be one within convenient distance. With 30, compare Deut. xvii. 6, and see my remarks thereupon.

Numb. xxvii. 1-11.

xxxvi. 1-13. "And when the jubilee of the children of Israel