Numbers 34-35: Sanctuary

As I get ever closer to the end of Numbers, the Israelites get ever closer to entering their Promised Land. Great battles must still be fought with the Canaanites, but in Numbers 35 Moses and his brethren begin thinking beyond those battles to a time when they will be firmly established in Canaan. I got the sense that, for the first time, the Israelites could begin to formulate laws appropriate to life in the city. For forty years they had been a wandering, nomadic people, setting up tents and camps in the vast deserts between Egypt and the Holy Land. And now, suddenly, they could begin to contemplate a structured existence within fortified walls. The thought of it I'm sure brought joy to their hearts.

One of the main topics of Numbers 35 is the idea of asylum within the cities of the Levites. I found this quite interesting as it is evidently the beginning of the whole idea of a sacred space being a safe-haven, or sanctuary, for the exiled, down trodden, or wrongly charged. This was a firmly established rule in Christendom throughout the Middle Ages and even into the Early Modern Period. A church was meant to be a sacred place, a sanctuary for those in need, a place of healing, and above all a place not to be confused with temporal and secular structures and institutions. A church, as a house of God, (and symbolized by the cities of the Levites in Numbers), is meant to be a place associated with the world beyond; a place that acts as a link to heaven for those of us still on earth. I think the idea of sanctuary (or asylum) is wonderful and it's disappointing to see its application decline so in recent history. It's a very Biblical concept and ought to be promulgated perpetually by the Church.

One other interesting thing from Numbers 35 is the law that someone utilizing sanctuary in a Levitical town cannot leave or seek his freedom until the death of the High Priest. According to some scholars, this is meant to show how our freedom and release is dependent upon the death of Christ (whom the High Priests symbolized). We cannot go "home," that is, to our eternal home of heaven, until Christ performs His fulfillment of the law upon the cross, which of course has occurred.

One more chapter to go in Numbers!