The Avenger Of Blood

There is a significant difference between the accidental killing of a human, also termed manslaughter, and intentional murder, even if both extinguish a human life outside of circumstances that require death for the sale of justice.  Mosaic Law does not prescribe any legal punishment for manslaughter, but it does withhold a manslaughterer's protection from a figure called the avenger of blood.  The avenger of blood was a person morally permitted to hunt down and kill someone guilty of murder if the two met (Numbers 35:16-21), seemingly in circumstances other than those leading up to the execution of a murderer on the testimony of two or three witnesses (Exodus 21:12-14, Deuteronomy 19:15).

In order to protect anyone who had committed manslaughter, cities of refuge were chosen.  Exodus 21:12-14 not only specifically acknowledges that accidental killing that has nothing to do with self-defense is not murder, but it also states that some sort of safe haven for men and women who commit manslaughter would later be designated.  However, it does not specify which regions would eventually serve as places of safety for manslaughterers.  In fact, Numbers 35:9-15 tells the Israelites themselves to select these cities of refuge, although it does require that they designate a certain number of cities of refuge in Canaan and on the other side of the Jordan.

The avenger of blood, as long as he or she did not pursue an irrelevant person, would not be guilty of murder for killing someone who had committed manslaughter if the latter appeared outside of a city of refuge--unless, of course, the high priest living at the time of the manslaughter died (Numbers 35:22-29).  Otherwise, it was not unjust for the avenger of blood to kill one who had unintentionally killed another human, given that the method was not one condemned by Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 25:1-3 is an example of a passage that separates torture and capital punishment while placing relatively high limitations on corporal punishment).

The Biblical God is so concerned with discouraging the careless killing of humans without malice or premeditation that, although he exempts manslaughterers from mandatory capital punishment due to the genuinely accidental nature of their actions, he does not consider it murder if someone "guilty" of manslaughter does not hide from the avenger of blood.  While manslaughter is not a capital offense, it is still, in a sense, just for someone who has committed manslaughter to die, or else it would not be allowed at all.  The avenger of blood's role is the closest thing there is to a Biblical punishment that is supererogatory.