Numbers 35:18
Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.
Numbers 35:18 belongs to the law concerning cities of refuge, forming part of the further instruction in Numbers 35:11-34 on that subject. That instruction classifies a fatal blow with a wooden hand weapon capable of causing death as murder.
The law moderated the custom by which a murdered person's next of kin would kill the murderer, by giving the slayer a place to escape and claim a fair trial. In this way it shielded the accused from the blood avenger until trial, while requiring judgment and not freeing a guilty murderer from legal punishment.
The verse rules that if a person strikes another with a wooden hand weapon wherewith he may die, and he die, the striker is a murderer and the murderer shall surely be put to death. The law distinguishes willful, deliberate, premeditated murder from accidental, unintentional and unwitting killing. In deciding a slayer's case the court was to consider whether the act was intentional, including whether he hated the victim or lay in wait, and whether the strike with a deadly wooden weapon was deliberate.
A city of refuge could shelter only the accidental slayer, protecting those who caused death accidentally or unintentionally and unwittingly. After a fair trial and judgment, a murderer found guilty was to be surrendered and delivered up for execution, and did not go free from legal punishment. A murderer could not buy freedom with money, and no payment could be accepted to spare him from death, with rich and poor to be treated without favoritism.
One who accidentally killed had to flee to the city to be safe from the dead person's relatives and remain there until the high priest dies. If he leaves before then he is no longer protected and faces judgment. Christ is the believer's refuge: those who remain in him are safe from wrath, but those who depart from him face destruction.
The cities were God's appointment of true cities of safety among His people of old, unlike fortified cities of the world such as Babylon that called themselves safe yet fell and became dust and ruins. They illustrate provision for the transgressor without permission to continue in sin, providing escape from death for those who killed unintentionally and not for a murderer.