Blood avenger

“The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death where he meets him.”  Numbers 35:19

Blood avenger – It all begins with this question:  Am I my brother’s keeper?  It was the most fatal question Cain could have asked.  He asked it on behalf of all humanity – for himself and for all of us.  And God replied, “Yes, you are.”  We are all guardians of the sanctity of life.  God expects us to treat life as He does.  He created it.  It is His to give and to take, not ours.  We have been assigned, under God’s supervision and authority, the requirement to respect life.  This is not optional.  It is not open for discussion.  And disregard of this responsibility has severe consequences.

The Hebrew phrase is go’el ha’adam.  The thought here is that a kinsman is to redeem (go’el) the violated sanctity by executing the murderer.  Life requires careful guardianship. 

Victor Hamilton points out that this verb is never used when God is the avenger.  God takes vengeance or requires recompense, but He does not “redeem”.  Life and death belong to Him.  He does not need to redeem what is His by right of creation.

Today we are surrounded by the false belief that our lives are our own.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  My life does not belong to me.  It is not mine to do with as I please.  I have life on lease from the owner.  It is entirely subject to His conditions.  I can choose to ignore the terms of my lease, but if I do I will certainly suffer the consequences.  Some of those consequences are handed down to my own kind with God’s permission.  Some God reserves for Himself.  None is to be discharged without the Owner’s expressed permission.  This is all very serious business.

Some day you and I will stand before the Owner and He will ask, “Did you exercise your guardianship over the lives that I put in your path?  Did you respect what I created?”  How terrible it will be if I am not able to say, “Yes, Lord.  All who came my way I treated as Yours.”