THE APPOINTMENT OF THREE CITIES OF REFUGE.

(41) Then Moses severed.--The word "then" appears to be a note of time. It would seem that the appointment of the three cities of refuge on the eastern side of Jordan actually followed this discourse.

On this side Jordan.--Heb., b' 'eber hay-yarden. The expression is here defined by the words that follow, "toward the sun-rising," and it need not, therefore, be taken to fix the writer's point of view. By itself, the expression would naturally mean, on the other side of Jordan.

(43) Bezer is as yet unidentified.

Ramoth in Gilead, though famous in the history of Israel as the scene of Ahab's death and of the anointing of Jehu (1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9), is also as yet unknown.

Golan has given a name to the district of Gaulonitis. But it is as yet also unknown. We may hope that when the survey of Eastern Palestine is concluded, these ancient sites will be recovered.

Verses 41-43. - APPOINTMENT OF THREE CITIES OF REFUGE BEYOND JORDAN. A short historical notice is here inserted, probably because it was during the interval between the first and second addresses of Moses that he carried into effect the Divine command to appoint cities of refuge for the manslayer (Numbers 35:9, etc.; cf. Exodus 21:13). This notice, therefore, is here in its proper place in the order of the narrative. That Moses should, just at this stage, have made this appointment was fitting and proper, seeing he had been urging on the people obedience to the Divine statutes and commandments, and had represented their conquest of the territory of Sihon and Og as an earnest of their ultimate possession of the whole land of the Amorites. By appointing these cities, Moses gave an example of obedience to God's injunction, and, at the same time, not only asserted on the part of Israel a right of proprietorship in this trans-Jordanic territory, but assumed as certain that, on the ether side of Jordan also, the same right of proprietorship should be possessed and exercised by Israel in the fulfilling of the whole law concerning cities of refuge (cf. Deuteronomy 19:1, etc.). That this section belongs properly to Numbers 35, 36, and has been interpolated here by some later hand, is a pure assumption, for which there is no ground. Verse 41. - On this side Jordan; beyond Jordan, more expressly defined as toward the sun rising, viz. on the east of that river.

4:41-49 Here is the introduction to another discourse, or sermon, Moses preached to Israel, which we have in the following chapters. He sets the law before them, as the rule they were to work by, the way they were to walk in. He sets it before them, as the glass in which they were to see their natural face, that, looking into this perfect law of liberty, they might continue therein. These are the laws, given when Israel was newly come out of Egypt; and they were now repeated. Moses gave these laws in charge, while they encamped over against Beth-peor, an idol place of the Moabites. Their present triumphs were a powerful argument for obedience. And we should understand our own situation as sinners, and the nature of that gracious covenant to which we are invited. Therein greater things are shown to us than ever Israel saw from mount Sinai; greater mercies are given to us than they experienced in the wilderness, or in Canaan. One speaks to us, who is of infinitely greater dignity than Moses; who bare our sins upon the cross; and pleads with us by His dying love.Then Moses severed three cities,.... To be cities of refuge, according to the command of God, Numbers 35:14 this he did when he had conquered the two kingdoms of the Amorites, that God had given them for an inheritance to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, Deuteronomy 4:38 though Jarchi says, and so other Jewish writers, that persons were not received into them until the three cities appointed in the land of Canaan were separated for the like use; See Gill on Numbers 35:14 and these were:

on this side Jordan, toward the rising sun; on that side of the river on which the plains of Moab lay, and the kingdoms of the Amorites, and to the east of Jordan: so Jarchi remarks,"on that side which is on the east of Jordan;''see Joshua 20:8.