שלש ערים תבדיל לך בתוך ארצך, “Three cities you shall set aside for yourself in the midst of your land;” together with the three towns which Moses had already designated as cities of refuge on the east bank of the Jordan as reported in Deut. 4,41-43, this makes a total of 6 such cities. It is essential that these cities are regular, populated cities with all the normal amenities of a city, seeing the Torah wrote in verse 3 תכין לך הדרך, “prepare the way for yourself,” and the Talmud Makkot 10 understands these words to mean that signs with the word מקלט, “refuge,” must be posted on all the roads leading to such cities. This is in order for the unintentional killer not to lose time while trying to escape the vengeance of the slain man’s family. On Psalms 25,8: “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He shows the sinners the way,” the sages say that these signs are designed to help unintentional sinners seeing their sin was inadvertent. We have another verse along similar lines in Job 36,22: “See, G’d is beyond reach in power; Who governs like Him?” The author refers to the unique attribute of G’d who helps the inadvertent sinner to rehabilitate himself.

The reason why the Torah continues with: “you shall divide your territory into three parts is that the cities of refuge should be situated so that their location effectively divides the land into three parts which are equi-distant from one another.

We should appreciate that the total number of 6 such cities reflects the principle of the 6 extremities of terrestrial earth (six directions) which we discussed already repeatedly. The first three cities which Moses set apart for this purpose on the east bank of the Jordan were quite unable to fulfill their function until they had been joined by these additional three cities on the west bank of which the Torah speaks here and which are as yet unnamed. There is a mystical element connected to this number 6 which also symbolizes 6 extremities in the celestial regions of the universe in which the soul of the sinner will have to receive his pardon from the loving kindness extended to it by Hashem. Although the three cities which Moses had already set aside were by themselves incapable of performing their function until there were six such cities, when Moses designated them as such he had in mind that they should represent the three letters in the tetragrammaton י-ה-ו. We find that seven letters in the aleph bet are described in the Sefer Yetzirah as כפולות, as having a dual function. In chapter 4, Mishnah 12, of that book we read: “whereas with two stones one can only build two houses, with three stones (read letters) one can build six houses, whereas with four stones one can build 24 houses.” [Although I do not profess to understand the deeper meaning of these progressions, or צירופים, permutations, as they are called in kabbalistic terms, it is clear that our author means that the three original cities set aside by Moses enabled the other three cities to become operational when they would be established and as such perform a dual function also. Mishnah 13 in Sefer Yetzirah chapter one, deals with the permutations of the three letters of the tetragrammaton. Ed.] It appears that whereas three cities are intended as a refuge for the body, the other three complement the whole function by being a refuge for the soul. In terms of what happens to the person who killed unintentionally when he arrives in the hereafter then, it is essential that at the time when he was in a city of refuge on earth there had been 6 such cities (although the killer can only live in one of them.) [I am omitting the balance of this paragraph (6 lines) as I do not understand it. It describes the progression of the souls in the hereafter from one part of “Gan Eden” to another. Ed.] The words תכין לך הדרך, are perceived as a preparation for such killers to escape this world for the world to come.

ושלשת את גבול ארצך, “you shall divide the territory of your land into three sections.” The simile continues, i.e. in order to make a total of six cities of refuge together with the three on the east bank; they are to correspond to the six extremities in our universe. The author understands this division in terms of the three parts of the universe we described earlier. The celestial regions are perceived as the topmost of these three parts of ארצך. Having attained that level in his penitence, the unintentional killer will begin his ascent to spiritual rehabilitation. This is the meaning of והיה לנוס שמה כל רוצח, the letters of the tetragrammaton are perceived as “open” letters, allowing easy access for the fleeing killer. [I believe the whole allegorical approach is based on the fact that this legislation had been spelled out in Numbers 35,9-34. The author may feel that the repetition is meant to allude to the mystical element of how it is possible to completely rehabilitate oneself for killing a person seeing one cannot bring him back to life. Ed.]

ואם ירחיב ה' אלו-היך את גבולך, “and if the Lord your G’d will expand your borders, etc.” This paragraph is a promise pertaining to the more distant future. It deals with aspects of what G’d had promised Avraham at the covenant between the pieces in Genesis 15,18: “to your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt until the great river, the river Euphrates.” In that connection G’d mentioned ten tribes all of whom would be dispossessed in favor of the Israelites. Seven of these nations were dispossessed in the days of Joshua whereas the other three the Keyni, Kenizi, and Kadmoni have never been conquered by the Jewish people, though they will be conquered in due course. In this instance the word ואם at the beginning of our verse is not to be understood as something conditional but as definitive. We must translate it as “when G’d will expand, etc.,” not “if G’d will expand.” The proof that this is the meaning of the word ואם in our verse are the words כאשר נשבע, "as He has sworn.” There was never anything “iffy” about this oath by G’d to our patriarchs. This is not the only instance in which the word אם means “when” instead of “if.” Another example is Exodus 20,22:ואם מזבח אבנים תעשה לי, where the meaning is: “when you make an altar of stones for Me;” a third example of the word אם meaning “when,” is in Exodus 22,24 אם כסף תלוה את עמי, where the meaning is not “if you will lend money to My people,” but “when you will lend money to My people.” Still another example of this meaning of the word אם is found in Leviticus 2,14 ואם תקריב מנחת בכורים, “when you offer a meal-offering of first ripe grain, etc.” (compare Mechilta בחודש 11 Parshat Yitro).

ויספת לך עוד שלש ערים, “then you shall add three more cities to these three.” A third group of three cities of refuge in addition to the two groups of three already established (in the territory which used to belong to seven of the ten tribes).

וכי יהיה איש שונא לרעהו וארב לו וקם עליו והכהו נפש, “if there will be a man who hates his fellow and he sets an ambush or him and rises up against him and strikes him fatally;” because he hates him he eventually spills his blood; he started with the relatively minor offense of hating a fellow Jew which led to the serious offense of murder (compare Sifri Shoftim 186).

לא תחוס עינך עליו,”your eye shall not pity him,” that you refuse to hand him over to the blood-avenger. You should not argue: “what is the point in another person being killed seeing the first one cannot be brought back.” This is one instance when pity is not only misplaced but is a form of cruelty.

לא תסיג גבול רעך, “do not move the boundary of your fellow.” According to Rashi the meaning of our verse is moving markers between fields, etc., surreptitiously depriving one’s neighbour while enlarging one’s own property. This prohibition, though spelled out separately, would be part of the general prohibition not to rob. The Torah repeated this only to tell us that when one moves such borders inside Eretz Yisrael one has violated two commandments instead of merely one. This is why the Torah added the words בנחלתך אשר תנחל, “in your inheritance which you shall inherit.”

Nachmanides writes that this is a warning not to tamper with the distribution of the plots of land within tribal boundaries which had been allocated by lottery, The tribal chief was in charge of these distributions to individual families. The Torah warns that one must not defy the tribal chief’s decisions in this matter. This is why the Torah added the words אשר גבלו ראשונים, “which the earlier ones had determined,” the “earlier ones” being the tribal chiefs in the days of Joshua whose decisions were made with the approval of the High Priest Eleazar and the national leader Joshua. The reason why this commandment has been recorded is to teach that a person does not have the right to accuse the people who had made the original delineation as having erred.

It is also possible to understand the whole verse in terms of whether the universe as we know it preceded G’d. Anyone who believes this is described as משיג גבול, “having the wrong priorities.” He turns the clock backward (philosophically speaking), seeing that he makes G’d the totally free and unlimited, subject to the limitations of time and space. The ראשונים mentioned in our verse are none other than the אביך וזקניך, “your father and your elders” mentioned in Deut. 32,7 who have taught you in response to your inquiry that G’d preceded all phenomena which we call universe. There is no need for that verse to testify to the truth of Moses and his prophecy seeing the people had been eye witnesses to that. Why would they have had to ask their fathers and elders? The reason the verse adds here בנחלתך אשר תנחל, [an obvious reference to something which is yet to happen, Ed.] is to stress that the whole focus of our existence on earth is ארץ ישראל which is the אמצעות העולם, “the centre of the universe.” The reason why this verse was written immediately following the discussion of murder, etc., is to remind us that just as such border violations will eventually lead to murder, i.e. a situation described in verse 11 as והכהו נפש, “he will kill a soul (deliberately), and will have no place to escape to, so heretical views about the universe having preceded the Creator will also result in the soul of a person believing this not having anywhere to escape to. The six extremities (boundaries) of both the physical and celestial world will not find room to accommodate the soul of such heretics.

לא יקום עד אחד באיש, “A single witness shall not stand up against any man, etc.;” this verse follows the legislation about moving boundaries to teach that if an owner of a field accuses his neighbor of having moved the mutual boundary between their fields, he has to bring no less than two witnesses to substantiate his accusation. The words of a single witness have no value as testimony, neither when matters of corporal punishment nor monetary punishment is involved. לכל עון ולכל חטאת, “for any iniquity or for any error;” such as if the single witness testifies that the party he has seen committed a sin against the Lord, such as a violation of the Sabbath, be it intentional or unintentional. בכל חטא, “of any sin.” This refers to sins involving only words between himself and his fellow. אשר יחטא, this refers to sins involving money between one person and another. In all of these situations the testimony of a single witness is legally meaningless. Only the testimony of two witnesses can result in the accused being punished. Our sages in Shevuot 40 interpret the words לכל עון ולכל חטאת restrictively, i.e. only in order to testify concerning sins committed by an action is a single witness useless; however regarding matters of oaths, the testimony of a single witness is not irrelevant at all. Example: Reuven claims that Shimon owes him a sum of money and Shimon denies it. A single witness, Levi, testifies that Shimon does owe Reuven the money. In that instance the testimony of Levi is enough for Shimon to have to repeat his denial on oath.

על פי שנים עדים, “according to two witnesses, etc.” our sages in Gittin 71 interpret the words על פי in our verse as meaning only oral testimony; written depositions are not acceptable as valid testimony. How do we reconcile this with the halachah that money may be extracted by the court on the basis of the signature of witnesses on a document such as an I.O.U? This is a Rabbinic decree designed to help potential borrowers obtain loans. If the Rabbis had not made this concession, many lenders might refuse to lend fearing that when the time comes there would be no witnesses around to testify orally on their behalf.

כי יקום עד חמס באיש, “If a false witness stands up against a man, etc.;” whenever the Torah speaks of עד without identifying the number of witnesses, 2 witnesses are meant. The meaning of our verse is that if two false witnesses testify against someone, i.e. claiming that something had been done which had never occurred that is the meaning of the word סרה, i.e. the witness is removed, הוסר, from such testimony. For instance, if two witnesses confront the original witnesses saying “how could you testify to an occurrence in such and such a place on such and such a date when in fact you were in our company on that date in a totally different place?” (Makkot 5)

ועמדו שני האנשים, “then the two men shall stand, etc.” the “men” are the witnesses. The verse teaches that testimony has to be given while standing. Also, the word האנשים means that women do not qualify as witnesses.

אשר להם הריב, “the ones who have a grievance;” the litigants. לפני ה', “in the presence of the Lord.” The Torah warns the parties that when they are in court before a judge or judges they should consider themselves as standing in front of the Lord. This is why Assaph says (Psalms 82,1) בקרב אלו-הים ישפוט, “G’d is present among the judges.” Had the Torah here meant that G’d, i.e. the Sanhedrin, must judge every case it should have written בקרב ה' אלו-הים ישפוט, Had the Torah used the attributes ה' אלו-הים here as it does throughout the Book of Deuteronomy, I would have concluded that all litigants have to go to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem for every case of litigation. This would have been the meaning of the words לפני ה' אלו-היך. The words (pertaining to the court)) אשר יהיו בימים ההם, “who (pl) will be in those days,” makes it clear that any of the courts in the various cities is included in that description. The words לפני הכהנים לפני ה' are all designed to prevent us misunderstanding what is meant. We find already with Moses that people seeking out his advice or judgment are described by the Torah as והיה כל מבקש ה', “anyone seeking the Lord.” (compare Exodus 33,7) at a time when Moses had put up his tent outside the camp of the Israelites. Even the angels are occasionally referred to by the tetragram, such as in Exodus 20,3 and 33,7 as I have mentioned on several occasions.

ודרשו השופטים היטב, “and the judges shall investigate thoroughly;” by means of the second set of witnesses who claim that the first witnesses could not have witnessed what they say they did. They employ the means of investigation we have described in detail in 13,15.

והנה עד שקר העד “and it emerges that the original witnesses were liars.” They were both lying.

ועשיתם לו כאשר זמם, “you shall do unto them as they had planned to do.” The testimony of the second set of witnesses is believed even if the original witnesses numbered 100 (compare Makkot 5). This is something very peculiar. What logical reason is there to trust the testimony of the latter witnesses more than that of the first? It appears to be an arbitrary decree by the Torah. Actually, the reason may well be that the two groups of witnesses do not contradict each other on the substance of the testimony. If they did, there is no question that their testimonies would cancel each other out. The second group of witnesses do not dispute the facts of the case; all they dispute is the ability of the first witnesses to testify to something they could not possibly have witnessed. Our sages in Makkot 5 also comment on the peculiar wording כאשר זמם, “as they had planned;” they derive from there if the plan of the first set of witnesses, namely to cause the execution of the person or persons whom they accuse, has already been carried out by the time the second set of witnesses arrive and testify, no action is taken against the second set of witnesses even if they turn out to have been false witnesses. If the second set of witnesses arrived before the execution, they are executed instead if they had tried to frame the first set of witnesses, if also their testimony is contradicted by another set of witnesses. The reason for this strange-sounding procedure is that we rely on the Holy Spirit which is present when the judges of the Sanhedrin conduct their deliberations. It is presumed that this Holy Spirit would not allow them to become guilty of spilling innocent blood, i.e. if they ordered the accused to be executed, he must have been guilty of a capital crime (even if not the one for which he was executed). When there has been such an evident involvement by G’d in this judgment, we leave the second set of witnesses alone, assuming that they may even have spoken the truth. However, assuming that the executed person had really been innocent, we know that G’d has many agents and that sooner or later He will take care of these lying witnesses on the basis of whose testimony we executed someone. At any rate, on the basis of כי המשפט לאלו-הים הוא, that in the final analysis judgment belongs to G’d, the lying witnesses had actually testified against a “dead man,” i.e. someone guilty of death. Seeing that they had been the ones on whose account the accused had been executed there is no point in executing them as a preventive measure.

One may raise the following objection to this whole process of reasoning: granted that the party who was executed was in fact guilty though not proven guilty by judicial process of law, what does his guilt have to do with the testimony of the עדים זוממים who have in the meantime been found liars and who by rights ought to pay the penalty for framing someone? Our sages simply feel that we have no authority to execute them seeing the Torah phrased the legislation in such a way that only “what they planned to do” makes them subject to our retribution by a human tribunal.

One of the Tosafists, the Ri (Rabbi Yitzchak ben Shmuel) claims that the reason for the principle of הרגו אין נהרגים if the testimony of the עדים זוממים resulted in their victim’s execution they are not executed themselves is that we are dealing here with three groups of witnesses. 1) The final group of witnesses have claimed that the second group were liars. The testimony of the first group of witnesses has never been refuted except that their testimony was not the kind that could convict. Moreover the original accused most certainly claimed to be innocent. Seeing that we wind up with four litigants, i.e. 2 sets against 2 sets, we must disregard the entire testimony now and cannot convict the second set on the basis of the last set of witnesses. The witnesses who were executed were in the minority of 2 against three. [This whole argument is most amazing after we have learned that there is no difference between 2 or 100 witnesses to the same facts. Ed.]