Numbers 35:25 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

He shall abide in it, be confined to it, partly to show the hatefulness of wilful murder in God's account by so severe a punishment, as this in many cases might prove, inflicted upon the very appearance of it; and partly for the security of the man-slayer, lest the presence of such a person, and his conversation among the kindred of the deceased, might occasion reproach and bloodshed. Unto the death of the high priest; partly because the public grief for the loss of so public a person was likely to assuage the private griefs and passions of men, the rather, because by this example they were minded of their own mortality, and thereby withheld from taking vengeance; and principally to show that the death of Christ (the true High Priest, whom the others did evidently and eminently represent and typify) is the only mean whereby sins are pardoned, and sinners are set at liberty.

Numbers 35:25

25 And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.