We’ve been mentioning that if a person kills, he has to go into exile. This Mishnah will tell us specifically where he has to go. The Mishnah says: Where do those people who kill go? They go to the cities of refuge. There are three in the other side of the Jordan River, and there are three in the land of the main part of, like the Pasuk (verse) tells us, there should be three cities in the, in three cities in the land of...
If a person kills, he has to go to the. The only way he could escape the person trying to kill him is if he is in one of those cities. The family member of the person who was killed is allowed to kill and take revenge on the killer, but he cannot kill him if he is in one of the the were part of the city that the lived in the lived in 48 cities across the land. We just mentioned that six of them were the specially designated arei miklat (cities of refuge). The other 42 were also arei miklat, but they weren’t the primary arei miklat, and there are certain dinim (laws) in which they differ.
So there were three main arei miklat in Jordan and three in Eretz Yisrael (Israel). The three that were in Jordan were designated by Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our teacher) before he entered Israel. But the three arei miklat in Eretz Kenaan (Land of Canaan), in Eretz Yisrael, were selected only by Yehoshua bin Nun (Joshua son of Nun) after he finished conquering Eretz Yisrael and dividing up the land, which took him 14 more years after they entered. As long as the three arei miklat in Eretz Yisrael weren’t chosen and designated by Yehoshua, the three arei miklat in Jordan wouldn’t work either. The murderer wasn’t allowed to run there, even though they had been chosen. These three arei miklat had been designated and chosen earlier, but that didn’t work until you had all six, until all six were active.
Shene'emar, like the Pasuk tells us, there should be six arei miklat. What we learn from this Pasuk is that the cities don’t work as arei miklat until all six of them are active and could provide a safe haven at the same time. Otherwise, the ones that were in Transjordan before the ones in Israel were active don't do anything. But once the ones in Israel were opened, then all of the arei miklat were active, and they could help the person who killed Beshogeg (by mistake). So during that 14-year gap, before the cities were designated in Israel, if somebody killed by mistake, they had nowhere to go and wouldn’t be safe from the Goel Hadam.