Numbers 35:22

Cities Of Refuge

²¹ or if you beat your enemy to death with your bare hands, you must be put to death. You are a murderer. The relative who can avenge the death must kill you when he catches up with you, because you are a murderer. ²² ‘But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or threw something at him without lying in wait, ²³ Or if you drop a big stone, and someone is killed. However, you did not know the person was there, he was not your enemy, and you were not trying to harm him.

In an Instant

Your Enemy

Exodus 21:13

If you did not intend to kill someone and I, Jehovah, let it happen anyway, you may run for safety to a place that I have set aside.

Numbers 35:11

select certain cities to be places of refuge. Anyone who unintentionally kills another person may run to them.

Deuteronomy 19:5

For example: when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle and strikes his friend so that he dies. He may flee to one of these cities and live.

Joshua 20:3

Anyone who kills someone accidentally and unintentionally may go there for a refuge from the avenger of blood.

Joshua 20:5

If the one looking for revenge follows you there, the people of the city must not hand you over to that one. They must protect you because you killed the person accidentally and not out of anger.