the blood pollutes the land

Here in Numbers we hear a similar sentiment: “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and the land can have no expiation for blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it” (Num. 35:33). The verb ḥ-n-f, which appears twice in this verse and nowhere else in the Mosaic books, means to pollute, to soil, to dirty, to defile. There is something fundamentally blemished about a world in which murder goes unpunished. Human life is sacred. Even justified acts of bloodshed, as in the case of war, communicate impurity. A priest who has shed blood does not bless the people. David is told that he may not build the Temple “because you shed much blood” (I Chr. 22:8). Death defiles.

This section mandates that the people should set aside three cities initially, with the addition of three more as needed, to provide refuge for persons guilty of unintentional homicide (see also 4:41–42; Exodus 21:13–14; Numbers 35:9–34). This law reflects an old practice that runs parallel to, and counter to, Deuteronomy’s principle that the courts have jurisdiction over the sentencing of a person to capital punishment and the carrying out of that punishment if warranted; in this case, a relative avenges a killing. A person who commits manslaughter could, according to other texts, find refuge at an altar (see I Kings 2:28–34); but since Deuteronomy bans local sanctuaries, it must find a substitute site of refuge, which it does by establishing “secular” cities of refuge (not the same as the levitical cities mentioned in Numbers 35). The principle inherent in this law fits with the Deuteronomic principles that innocent blood should not be spilled and that the guilty should receive just punishment.

In a brief passage that seems utterly out of place amid the deep rhetoric of this section, Moshe carries out a command he had received in Num. 35:9–34 to make sure that an accidental manslayer has a special place(s) to flee to from an avenging family. Perhaps this has been placed here because it is one of the few “laws and regulations” in the Torah whose observance is mandated on the east bank of the Jordan River—and hence is one of the few that Moshe personally gets to carry out.

It is no coincidence that the book of Numbers draws to a close with a statement of one of the fundamentals of Judaism: the sanctity of human life. As the people approach the land that will become holy, they are reminded: “Do not pollute the land in which you live; it is blood that pollutes the land” (Num. 35:33). With these words we are brought back almost to the beginning of the human story, to the scene in which the first child, Cain, murders the second, Abel, and is told by God, “The sound of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Likewise we recall the central law of the covenant with Noah: “He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God did God make man” (Gen. 9:6). Since the human person is the image of God, murder is not merely a crime; it is sacrilege. It defiles the land. It desecrates something holy, namely human life itself.