With a snow, sleet, and ice storm threatening much of the country, including St. Louis, most church services for Sunday, January 5, 2025, were cancelled out of concern for peoples’ safety. My church provided online resources in order to worship at home, which I did. Inadvertently, I misread the Bible passage in the book of Joshua and read chapter 20 instead of chapter 24. 

I was surprised by the topic of chapter 20. It must be remembered that this is both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament. The heading for that passage in my Bible was “Six Cities of Refuge.” Despite reading through the Bible frequently throughout my life, this chapter for the first time impacted me deeply and differently. Why? Well, it’s because it reveals how far our system of justice has strayed from the Jewish and Christian God’s justice.

In this passage, a depiction of genuine and true justice appears: “Then the Lord spoke to Joshua saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, Designate the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, that the manslayer who kills any person unintentionally, without premeditation, may flee there, and they shall become your refuge from the avenger of blood.’” (Joshua 20: 1-3) So, they appointed six cities for the Israelites and sojourners to flee to for anyone who kills someone unintentionally. 

This record reveals God’s justice to be mixed with mercy when it comes to manslaughter. Not all deaths caused by another are counted or punished the same. Manslaughter is distanced from murder due to its not being intentional, premeditated, or with hatred. Further on in the passage it states that if the “avenger of blood” pursues the manslayer to their city of refuge, the elders of the city, “...shall not deliver the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally and did not hate him beforehand.” (Joshua 20: 5) It’s important to recognize hatred couldn’t be involved. 

As this ordinance separates a guilty party as to consequence from one who struck another with intention, premeditation, and/or hatred, the implication and implied consequence or punishment for one who does so based on these three motivations is treated without mercy. Furthermore, it is indicative of the justice of capital punishment. 

According to both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, this is divine justice, that is, God-blessed genuine, legitimate, and true justice. Such a perspective emphasizes the seriousness of killing someone intentionally, premeditatively, and hatefully, i.e., first-degree murder. Capital punishment may be perceived as rightfully avenging the victim’s loss of life. In other words, it is fair and righteous punishment and redress of the most evil and heinous act against another person. “A life for a life” is basically total equivalence. In our society and justice system, we have unreasonably discounted and devalued the life of the victims by not applying the only just consequence to such evil. In the few and rare instances where capital punishment is carried out, it is generally close to a lifetime later and in a more merciful, gentler manner than what the victims experienced. They are not subjected to cruel or unusual punishments; they are sedated beforehand. Nonetheless, the executions should occur sooner and closer to time of sentencing in order to be a deterrent to such violent crimes. Surely, someone who has killed several or many people should definitely face capital punishment. 

This might appear or sound harsh, but justice must be equal to the crime if it is to be just. The victims and their families deserve it. Society also deserves it, as it is taxed with financially supporting the guilty parties for many years while criminals fear no just repercussions for their behaviors and crimes, and society is less protected.

Some might reject religious principles related to this subject, but moral issues are dealt with in religion, especially the Judeo/Christian tradition. The aforementioned passage in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament testifies to the fairness and mercy applied to the manslayer while the murderer faces impartial true justice. 

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