Harmony

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

HARMONY

Josh 20

20:1 Then the LORD said to Joshua: 2 "Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, 3 so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood. 4 "When he flees to one of these cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his case before the elders of that city. Then they are to admit him into their city and give him a place to live with them. 5 If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not surrender the one accused, because he killed his neighbor unintentionally and without malice aforethought. 6 He is to stay in that city until he has stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then he may go back to his own home in the town from which he fled." 7 So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. 8 On the east side of the Jordan of Jericho they designated Bezer in the desert on the plateau in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan in the tribe of Manasseh. 9 Any of the Israelites or any alien living among them who killed someone accidentally could flee to these designated cities and not be killed by the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.

NIV

The situation is laid out in full in the book of numbers, but still the truth is there must have been accidental ways to take another man’s life. One that is enumerated in numbers is if a man accidentally drops a stone on someone and they die. Perhaps they were building a home, and one was on scaffolding, and dropped a stone by accident and it hit his fellow worker. However, according to the law, the avenger of death, that is the closest relative who would inherit the dead persons estate, or their inheritance had the right to immediately take the man’s life who caused the death of the other. However, here are places they can take refuge in until they stand trial. What do we do with this law, and refuge cities, with a trial. Of course, we believers would never commit murder or even kill someone accidentally, unless we were in a car crash and the people or person in the other car died. But the point is we would not ever even think about destroying another’s life. We all live in harmony, building each other up, putting others’ needs above our own, or at least that is how we are supposed to live. However, we have witnessed the harm or injury done to another through gossip. We know that is in some way, gossip can destroy a person’s reputation which in essence is their life in the assembly. Unforgiveness can never be achieved as long as hatred exists  toward another person for there offense, or even supposed offence. Yet, unforgiveness actually destroys the unforgiver from within. As believers within the assembly should never have to stand trial, for none of us have the right to judge another, only the Lord has that right, and he judges our hearts, but all men will stand trial before the Lord, ever knee will bow, and only those whose names remain in the book of life will live. Let us not accidentally or on purpose cause harm to another or to ourselves, but let us truly live in harmony.