Numbers 35:33

“You must execute people who truly murder others. If you did not do that, you would be causing the people who live in the land to become unacceptable to me. Anyone who deliberately kills an innocent person must be executed.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

In Context

32“If someone has run to a city where he will be safe/protected, do not allow him to give you money in order that you will permit him to return to his home before the Supreme Priest dies.

34I am Yahweh, and I live among you Israelis, so do not spoil/pollute the land by allowing people to murder others without being punished.”

Read all of Numbers 35

Cross References

Leviticus 18:25They even caused the land to become defiled, so I punished them for their sins, and it was as though the land vomited out the people who lived there.

Deuteronomy 21:1“Suppose someone has been murdered in a field in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, and you do not know who killed that person.

2 Samuel 3:29I hope/desire that Joab and all his family will be punished [MTY] for doing that! I hope/desire that there will always be someone in his family who has sores, or someone who is a leper, or some man who is forced to do women’s work, or someone who is killed in a battle, or someone who does not have enough food to eat!”

2 Kings 23:26But Yahweh had become extremely angry with the people of Judah because of all the things that King Manasseh had done to infuriate him, and he continued to be very angry.

2 Chronicles 23:15She tried to flee, but they seized her as she reached the gate where horses enter the palace area, and they killed her there.

Psalms 106:38They killed [MTY] their own children, who ◄were innocent/had not done things that were wrong►, and offered them as sacrifices to the idols in Canaan. As a result, Canaan land was polluted by those murders [MTY].

Matthew Henry on Numbers 35:10-34

The Cities of Refuge. ( b. c. 1452.) 9 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 11 Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares. 12 And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger; that the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment. 13 And of these cities which ye shall give… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Numbers 35:33