Digest of Biblical Civil Law

The law of accidental manslaughter required one who accidentally kills another to flee to a city of refuge until the death of the high priest or else be killed by the nearest kin of the person killed (Deut. 19:1-13 and Num. 35:10-34).  The death of the high priest serves as a substitute for the death of the accidental manslayer, so that he may return to the land.  Thus the death of Aaron enabled Israel to leave the wilderness and to begin the conquest of Canaan (Num. 20:22 - 21:3). When God destroyed Egypt, He acted as Avenger of blood, by turning the Nile to blood, thus defiling all Egypt. This was a symbolic manifestation of the previous bloodying of the Nile which occurred when Israelite babies were thrown into it (Exo. 1:22). The bloodied land cried out for God to destroy each family in it, by destroying the firstborn of each household.  Each household that was under the blood of the Passover, under the blood of the death of the high priest Jesus Christ (symbolized by the blood of the lamb), was a miniature city of refuge. The death of this high priest enabled them to leave these sanctuaries in the morning of the exodus. The inhabitants of these cities of refuge were the firstborn sons, spared by the Angel of Death. Later, when the firstborn were replaced by the Levites (Num. 3), they become the inhabitants of the cities of refuge, which were all Levitical cities (Num. 35:6). Thus, the cities of refuge were created by the Passover.  This law concerning cities of refuge no longer applies because it is fulfilled in Jesus, the great High Priest who has died and permanently cleansed the whole earth of defiling blood with His blood.

- James Jordan, The Law of the Covenant 97-102 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/:HTML, DjVu.