And he shall dwell in that city, until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from where he fled.
All Commentaries on Joshua 20:6 Go To Joshua 20
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
There remains … what Scripture says concerning the death of the chief priest, “that the homicide shall be in the city of refuge even to that time, until the high priest dies.” In this passage the literal interpretation causes difficulty. First, the period of flight is limited by chance rather than by any consideration of fairness; further, in like cases the result is unlike. For it could happen that the high priest might die on the day after the homicide took refuge. However, what is the meaning beneath the uncertainty? And so, because the letter causes difficulty, let us search for spiritual meanings. Who is that high priest but the Son of God, the Word of God? We enjoy his advocacy in our behalf before the Father, for he is free from every offense, both willed and unintentional, and in him subsist all things which are on earth and which are in heaven. For all things have been bound by the bond of the Word and are held together by his power and subsist in him, because in him they have been created and in him all God’s fullness dwells. And so all things endure, because he does not allow what things he has bound to be loosened, since they subsist in his will. Indeed, so long as he wills, he keeps all things in check by his command and rules them and binds them by a harmony of nature. Therefore the Word of God lives, and he lives most of all in the souls of the holy, and the fullness of the Godhead never dies. For God’s everlasting divinity and eternal power never die. To be sure, he dies to us if he is separated from our soul, not that our spirit is destroyed by death, but that it is loosened and stripped from union with him. Yes, true death is the separation of the Word from the soul. Thereupon, the soul begins at once to be open to sins of volition.
