Bezer

Bezer was a town on the Transjordan tableland assigned to the tribe of Reuben, set apart by Moses as the southernmost of the three eastern cities of refuge and later given to the Levites. Its name is usually taken to mean "stronghold" or "fortress". The site has not been fixed with certainty; Umm el Amad, northeast of Medeba, is the identification most often proposed, and this identification is debated among biblical archaeologists.

Biblical Account

Bezer first appears when Moses, still east of the Jordan, "set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan" so that a man who killed his neighbour unintentionally might flee there and live: "Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites" (Deuteronomy 4:41 to 43). After the conquest began in 1406 BC, Israel confirmed the same three, appointing Bezer "beyond the Jordan east of Jericho" from the tribe of Reuben, alongside Kedesh, Shechem and Hebron west of the river (Joshua 20:7 to 9). The refuge protected the unintentional killer from the avenger of blood "till he stood before the congregation" (Joshua 20:9; compare Numbers 35:9 to 15).

Bezer was also one of four Reubenite towns given "with its pasturelands" to the Merarite Levites, listed with Jahaz, Kedemoth and Mephaath (Joshua 21:36 to 37; 1 Chronicles 6:78 to 79). The Chronicler again calls it "Bezer in the wilderness". Bezer is absent from the list of Reuben's towns in Joshua 13:15 to 21, and the Bible records no event that took place there.

Geography and Identification

The phrase "in the wilderness on the tableland" places Bezer on the Mishor, the level plateau between the Arnon gorge and Heshbon that had belonged to Sihon (Deuteronomy 3:10; Joshua 13:21), and on its eastern, desert facing side. Several sites have been proposed. The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible favours Umm el Amad, northeast of Medeba and east of Mount Nebo; other reference works place that site roughly 19 kilometres south of Rabbah of the Ammonites. Older proposals included Burazin, about 19 kilometres north of Heshbon, and Kasur el Besheir, about 3 kilometres southwest of Dibon. S. R. Driver connected the name with the Bozrah of Moab named in Jeremiah 48:24. None of these candidates has been shown by excavation to be Bezer, so the location is best classed as possible rather than probable, and no single site can be asserted.

Historical Context

Bezer is named in an extrabiblical text. On the Mesha Stele, the Moabite victory inscription found at Dhiban in 1868 and now in the Louvre, King Mesha of Moab records among his building works: "I built Bezer, for it was in ruins" (line 27 in the usual numbering, line 26 in some editions), followed by a clause about the men of Dibon whose rendering varies between editions: Lemaire reads it as Mesha calling all Dibon his guard, others as the men of Dibon being loyal or obedient to him. The inscription dates to about 840 BC and describes Mesha's recovery of the tableland from Israel after the death of Ahab (853 BC; compare 2 Kings 3:4 to 5). The stele therefore shows Bezer lying derelict in the mid ninth century BC and being rebuilt as a Moabite town, which fits the biblical picture of a Reubenite plateau that passed out of Israelite hands. It also confirms that Bezer was a real settlement on the Mishor, in the territory the Bible assigns to Reuben.

Theological Significance

As a city of refuge Bezer embodied the principle that the shedding of blood, even unintended, required a lawful answer rather than private vengeance, and that the manslayer's safety lay in reaching a place God had appointed (Numbers 35:11 to 12). Its double status as refuge and Levitical town placed that provision under the care of the priestly tribe. The refuge cities point forward to the shelter found in Christ, in whom the guilty flee to God's appointed place of safety (Hebrews 6:18).