CITIES OF REFUGE - God told Joshua to provide six “cities of refuge” into which those who had slain someone could flee for refuge until a trial could ascertain the facts and render a proper verdict. As such, these cities are a type of Christ. The names of the six cities are Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan. The meanings of these names seem planned especially to foreshadow this spiritual application. Thus, the cities are appropriately named both for their immediate purpose and as a picture of Christ as the Savior of sinners. - “Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.” - When the Israelites entered the promised land, God told Joshua to provide six “cities of refuge” into which those who had slain someone could flee for refuge until a trial could ascertain the facts and render a proper verdict. As such, these cities are a type of Christ, through whom “we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” The names of the six cities are given in Joshua 20:7-8 as Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan. The meanings of these names seem planned especially to foreshadow this spiritual application. Thus, the cities are appropriately named both for their immediate purpose and as a picture of Christ as the Savior of sinners. The meanings of these names seem planned especially to foreshadow this spiritual application.

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Cities of Refuge

These cities are a type of Christ

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God told Joshua to provide six “cities of refuge” into which those who had slain someone could flee for refuge until a trial could ascertain the facts and render a proper verdict. As such, these cities are a type of Christ. The names of the six cities are Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan. 

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The meanings of these names seem planned especially to foreshadow this spiritual application. Thus, the cities are appropriately named both for their immediate purpose and as a picture of Christ as the Savior of sinners.

BY HENRY M. MORRIS, PH.D.       

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR)

 

“Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.” - (Numbers 35:14)

 

When the Israelites entered the promised land, God told Joshua to provide six “cities of refuge” into which those who had slain someone could flee for refuge until a trial could ascertain the facts and render a proper verdict.

As such, these cities are a type of Christ, through whom “we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18).

The names of the six cities are given in Joshua 20:7-8 as Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan.

The meanings of these names seem planned especially to foreshadow this spiritual application.

Kedesh means “holy place,” and Christ in the New Jerusalem is the ultimate refuge, for “the Lamb [is] the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22).

Shechem means “strong shoulder,” which answers to the “strong consolation” we have in Christ when we flee to Him for refuge.

Hebron means “fellowship,” and we who have come to Christ have been “called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

Bezer means “strong hiding place.” The Scripture assures the believer that “your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

Ramoth means “high place,” and when we are hidden in Christ, God also has “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

Finally, Golan apparently means “enclosure for captives,” and this would speak of our being set free from sin and death to become captive to Christ. “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive” (Ephesians 4:8).

Thus, the cities are appropriately named both for their immediate purpose and as a picture of Christ as the Savior of sinners.

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wants people to know that God’s Word can be trusted in everything it speaks about—from how and why we were made, to how the universe was formed, to how we can know God and receive all He has planned for us.

After 50 years of ministry, ICR remains a leader in scientific research within the context of biblical creation. Founded by Dr. Henry Morris in 1970, ICR exists to conduct scientific research within the realms of origins and Earth history, and then to educate the public both formally and informally through professional training programs, through conferences and seminars around the country, and through books, magazines, and media presentations.

http://www.icr.org/article/10376

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THE HEBRON PURCHASE - The first part of the land of Israel to belong to the Jewish people in the actual and legal sense was the “Machpelah field and its cave” in the heart of Hebron, which Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite. In Genesis 23, we read of the first tract in the Land of Israel to enter into Jewish possession. Sixty years earlier, G‑d had told Abraham: “The entire land that you see, I will give to you and your descendants forever . . . Arise and traverse the land, in its length and in its breadth, for to you I shall give it” But this was a promise concerning the future; the land was not yet his, and Abraham took care not to even allow his sheep to graze on Canaanite property. The first part of the land of Israel to belong to the Jewish people in the actual and legal sense was the “Machpelah field and its cave” in the heart of Hebron, which Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite. As our sages point out, there are three parts of Israel over which the Jewish right of ownership is most powerfully established. Even one who denies the divine promise quoted above — and reiterated by G‑d tens of times throughout the Bible — cannot contest the Jewish right over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, purchased by King David from Aravnah the Jebusite; the section of Shechem (Nablus) purchased by Jacob from the family of the Canaanite ruler Hamor; and the Machpelah field of Hebron, of which we read: “And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver in negotiable currency . . . “Then Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.”

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The Hebron Purchase
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The first part of the land of Israel to belong to the Jewish people in the actual and legal sense was the “Machpelah field and its cave” in the heart of Hebron, which Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite

By Yanki Tauber

In chapter 23 of Genesis, we read of the first tract in the Land of Israel to enter into Jewish possession.

Sixty years earlier, G‑d had told Abraham: “The entire land that you see, I will give to you and your descendants forever . . . Arise and traverse the land, in its length and in its breadth, for to you I shall give it” (Genesis 13:15,17).

But this was a promise concerning the future; the land was not yet his, and Abraham took care not to even allow his sheep to graze on Canaanite property.

(Indeed, this was the cause of the split between Abraham and his nephew Lot — see Rashi on Genesis 13:7.)

The first part of the land of Israel to belong to the Jewish people in the actual and legal sense was the “Machpelah field and its cave” in the heart of Hebron, which Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite.

As our sages point out, there are three parts of Israel over which the Jewish right of ownership is most powerfully established.

Even one who denies the divine promise quoted above — and reiterated by G‑d tens of times throughout the Bible — cannot contest the Jewish right over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, purchased by King David from Aravnah the Jebusite (as related in the closing verses of II Samuel); the section of Shechem (Nablus) purchased by Jacob from the family of the Canaanite ruler Hamor (Genesis 33:19); and the Machpelah field of Hebron, of which we read:

“And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver in negotiable currency . . .

“Then Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.”

The Torah recounts the Ephron-Abraham sale in great detail, including the sum of the purchase price — four hundred silver shekels.

Based on this figure, the thirteenth-century sage Rabbi Yitzchak bar Yehudah (author of Paaneach Raza) makes an interesting calculation.

According to Leviticus 27:16, the value of land in biblical times was 50 silver shekels for a beit kor, or 75,000 square amot (cubits).

Thus, the area purchased by Abraham was eight beit kor, or 600,000 square cubits.

A square cubit is the approximate area occupied by an upright human being. 

The generation of Jews which left Egypt and received the Torah at Mount Sinai numbered some 600,000 heads of households.

Our sages tell us that the Jewish nation consists of 600,000 souls, and that the soul of every Jew who ever lived is an offshoot of one of these 600,000 “general” souls.

Thus, the Torah contains 600,000 letters (counting the spaces between letters), for each Jew possesses something of the Torah.

The same is true of the Land of Israel. Israel is the eternal inheritance of the Jewish people, equally the property of every individual Jew.

And so, it has been from the very first moment of Jewish ownership of the Holy Land: the first plot of land obtained by the first Jew included a share for every Jewish soul. 

By Yanki Tauber; based on the teachings of the Rebbe.

Yanki Tauber served as editor of Chabad.org

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/588238/jewish/The-Hebron-Purchase.htm