Deuteronomy 19:1-3

Laws Concerning Manslaughter

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he 1  is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses, 19:2 you must set apart for yourselves three cities 2  in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession. 19:3 You shall build a roadway and divide into thirds the whole extent 3  of your land that the Lord your God is providing as your inheritance; anyone who kills another person should flee to the closest of these cities.

Deuteronomy 19:9

19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments 4  I am giving 5  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities 6  to these three.

1 tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

2 sn These three cities, later designated by Joshua, were Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem, and Hebron (Josh 20:7-9).

3 tn Heb “border.”

4 tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).

5 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”

6 sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.