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NUMBERS 35–36; PSALM 47

Week 9, Day 5

The Levites, as I have mentioned before, had no inheritance of land; their inheritance was the Lord. They were given forty-eight cities in which they could live, but as residents rather than owners. Among those cities were the six cities of refuge. In a culture where family vengeance was practiced, these cities provided safety until fair judgment could be had, and afterward if the person was innocent. It was a wonderfully simple and effective plan for its time and place, and it was appropriate that the Levites were the keepers of this security.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, in our day, if there were some sort of refuge where we could be protected against character assassins until all the facts were in? At one time or another, all of us would have occasion to run to such a refuge, if it existed.

In any event, we Christians ought to fill such a role. Taking the Levites as our pattern, we should protect and sustain those persons whom life is treating badly, whether they be victims of something so vast as political injustice or as ever-present as the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Every human being has times when he or she wishes there were a place to run and hide, not out of cowardice but out of necessity. Such a refuge is available in prayer, of course; but I’m sure God intends for us to become a physical and active place, in heaven’s stead, for those who are pursued by destruction.

PRAYER: Help me, O God, to provide shelter for those who are victims—by fault or faultless—in the struggle of life; in Christ. Amen.

What logic, other than economics, can you see in regulations that insist on a woman’s marrying within her tribe?