Miqlat names refuge in passages about Israel's designated cities for a person who has killed another unintentionally. Numbers 35 places these cities within a legal process that protects the manslayer from immediate revenge until the assembly judges the case.
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Full entry for מִקְלָט (H4733) · Open the biblical lexicon
Miqlat names refuge in passages about Israel's designated cities for a person who has killed another unintentionally. Numbers 35 places these cities within a legal process that protects the manslayer from immediate revenge until the assembly judges the case.
The BSB source-word alignment has 20 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of refuge (17), as a refuge (2), refuge (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Numbers 35:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Numbers (11), Joshua (7), 1 Chronicles (2).
Miqlat names refuge in passages about Israel's designated cities for a person who has killed another unintentionally. Numbers 35 places these cities within a legal process that protects the manslayer from immediate revenge until the assembly judges the case. It distinguishes accidental killing from deliberate violence, requires more than one witness for a capital conviction and refuses ransom as a way to purchase escape from the law.
Protection includes Israelites and resident foreigners. Joshua 20 narrates the appointment and reception of people fleeing there. The noun thus carries a specific institutional setting, with admission, hearing, boundaries and responsibility. It is broader than a feeling of safety but narrower than unlimited immunity. Christian comparison with refuge in God must retain these distinctions rather than turn a city into automatic absolution or authorize a modern congregation to obstruct investigation, conceal abuse or replace lawful protection with an unaccountable private tribunal.
The selected refuge-city clauses describe unintentional killing, protection before trial, inclusion of resident foreigners, the assembly's responsibility and limits that cannot be purchased away.
Designate cities to serve as your cities of refuge, so that a person who kills someone unintentionally may flee there.
The cities are designated for a person who kills unintentionally, so admission must retain the law's distinction from intentional killing.
You are to have these cities as a refuge from the avenger, so that the manslayer will not die until he stands trial before the assembly.
Protection from the avenger continues until the manslayer stands trial before the assembly; shelter does not erase the hearing.
These six cities will serve as a refuge for the Israelites and for the foreigner or stranger among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.
Israelites, foreigners and strangers share access for unintentional killing, giving this protection a stated scope beyond ancestry alone.
The assembly is to protect the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood. Then the assembly will return him to the city of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.
The assembly must protect and return the manslayer to the refuge city, whose residence requirement lasts until the high priest's death.
Nor should you accept a ransom for the person who flees to a city of refuge and allow him to return and live on his own land before the death of the high priest.
A ransom cannot buy an early return from the refuge city, preventing wealth from bypassing the stated residence boundary.
So that anyone who kills another unintentionally or accidentally may flee there. These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
Joshua states the accidental or unintentional purpose and protection from the avenger before describing the elders' hearing and appointed cities.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Place of refuge that receives and protects the pursued; literal receptacle becomes theological shelter in covenant law
Place of refuge that receives and protects the pursued; literal receptacle becomes theological shelter in covenant law
an asylum (as a receptacle) BDB: refuge Usage: refuge.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
מִקְלָט is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Numbers 35 connects shelter with a public responsibility: the manslayer is not to die before standing trial. The assembly must distinguish the circumstances of killing, rather than leaving judgment to the heat of retaliation. Its later duty to protect and return the person to a refuge city makes the process more than a verbal promise. Inclusion of the foreigner shows that the specified safeguard is not reserved solely for native Israelites.
At the same time, the chapter treats life and deliberate violence seriously, requires sufficient testimony and bars ransom from overriding its provisions. The cities offer neither a market for immunity nor a hiding place that makes facts unnecessary. Joshua 20 adds hearing by the city elders and the actual geographical appointment. Present communities can learn to resist retaliation, take evidence seriously and make protection accessible, while recognizing that they do not inherit Israel's civil penalties or blood-avenger practice.
A church's hospitality should accompany lawful safeguarding and independent accountability, especially when violence has occurred. Refuge cannot mean securing an influential person's freedom from scrutiny at another person's expense.
Num.35.12
The masculine noun occurs within expressions for cities of refuge and refuge from the avenger. Construct and possessive forms identify the appointed place; the legal clauses supply eligibility and limits rather than the noun alone.
Hebrews 6:13-20 speaks of people who have fled to take hold of hope, grounding their assurance in God's promise and oath and in Jesus as forerunner and high priest. This explicit refuge-like movement is a thematic comparison; it does not transfer every city boundary, civil penalty or manslayer condition into Christ's saving work.