A City at the Center of the World
Joshua 20:1-3a & 7a
Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there.’” … So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali…
My heart leapt within me upon seeing that precious word ‘Galilee’ written across this Old Testament parchment, especially in its symbolic relationship to a city of refuge. A refuge that in the generations immediately following Joshua’s ministry will specifically serve to protect men and women who accidentally kill a fellow man, but that, for us who’ve had the blessing of hindsight, who live in the afterword of Christ’s Passion, serves as an undeniable hint of coming redemption.
Now, upon seeing ‘Galilee’ in Joshua 20 today, it struck me as the very first appearance of the name in the Bible, so I turned to my concordance just to verify that Moses hadn’t made any previous reference. Well, my concordance isn’t exhaustive, and, funny enough, this particular reference isn’t even mentioned. Rather, the first mention listed in my ESV comes in Isaiah 9:1, which piqued my interest, so I turned there. Oh the delight that followed! Isaiah 9:1 reads: “In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.”
When God calls Joshua’s name from heaven and calls him to set apart places of refuge in the commonwealth, and when Joshua then chooses by the inspiring agency of the Holy Spirit Galilee of all places, this is no trivial thing. Oh no—this is more divine foreshadowing! This is another hint that something wondrous will happen in this very place for those who’ve shed innocent blood and need refuge from judgment. That, in this very place, the Savior will one day speak over our infamy, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!” That, in this place, all of us who’ve sinned and fallen short of God’s glory can run to Galilee and find that the very Victim of our crime and the very Accuser Who demands our just death is also our Advocate and Refuge!