Joshua 20:4
And when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.
Under the former Jewish order the procedure for reaching safety was laid out without ambiguity, the one fleeing presenting himself at the entrance of the gate of refuge. There he was to state his case openly before the elders of the town, and upon that hearing they were to receive him inside and assign him a dwelling place among themselves. The distinctness of that appointed path mirrors the distinctness with which the way to true happiness and life has been marked out in willing obedience to the Creator. Set opposite to it stands the way of disobedience, whose end is misery and death, so that the two courses are left plainly contrasted.