Numbers 34 – 36

Verses 35:16 – 21 talk about specific types of death:

^16-21 If someone picks up an instrument—iron, stone, wood, whatever—and batters somebody else so badly that the victim dies, or if he otherwise kills with intent (fatally pushes with hatred or throws an object from some hidden place that kills its target), the perpetrator is guilty of murder. His punishment is death in return, and someone shall be assigned to kill him. The one to carry out this death penalty is called the “blood avenger.” Whenever the avenger has a chance to kill the murderer, he should do so.

Here is one of those consistency problems many have with how God handles man. We look at incidences of say Lot’s wife, Er, Nabad, Abihu and many others who God strikes down in anger. If you look at many instances where God strikes down others, it’s often for something that may seem minor like Lot’s wife looking back. Now here someone is a murderer and God does not strike them down, but requires another man to kill them.

This does not only seem inconsistent, but also against one of the Ten Commandments says “Thou shalt not kill” (KJV). I cannot address the consistency problems but can address the violation problem. When the KJV was translated, the word kill and murder were synonymous yet as the English language evolves and most translations say “Do not murder”. What is interesting is the KJV is the most quoted version of this Commandment since it gives the broadest ranges to even apply to eating meat. Anyway, at least death for a murder is actually Biblically correct.

Verse 35:33 gives more details on why this must be followed:

Failure to honor life in this way contaminates the very land itself. Do not pollute the land where you live by allowing blood guilt to go unpunished. Once the land has been subjected to such violence, it must be purified, so the blood of the one who caused bloodshed must be shed

The focus is keeping the people and the land pure. Once it’s ok to murder and do most other sins, it corrupts the people into a spiral away from God.

Verse 36:5 sparks another question:

The Eternal has said that these descendants of Joseph are right.

Zelophehad’s question was how the law applies to a unique situation. In this instance Moses acknowledges that the Law did not fully consider all permutations of possibilities. Now was this God trying to keep things simple and lawyers mucking things up or did God miss something? This verse implies that God missed this possibility and therefore had not considered it. This is where many look at an all knowing God as being wrong since God should have considered this in His first draft, so the Law would be “perfect” from day one. Is this why we challenge God?