Cities Of Refuge
Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares.
12 And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger; that the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment.
13 And of these cities which ye shall give six cities shall ye have for refuge.
14 Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.
15 These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.
Leviticus 35:11-15
Alright so here God has appointed several cities of refuge, six in fact throughout the land to which the guilty or the innocent falsely accused may run. This then is the first case we see recorded of such cities. Before that, these were largely nomadic people, meaning they moved a lot and also dwelled in tents. Now a tent-dwelling lifestyle is not much different than that of the hunter-gatherer or even the herdsman that we saw at first. Tent-dwelling for that time wasn't exactly a bad proposition because the dweller therein could pack up and leave at any time. Of course, such movement was generally guided by availability of water sources, fertile ground for the grazing of livestock, and plenty of food for hunting or foraging whichever the case may be.
Otherwise, if there is no water supply is freshly available, what happened was men would dig a well. Whether this was all nice and sophisticated and lined to brick or stone to prevent collapse or just a shallow pit dug into the ground is another matter entirely. Either one of those are perfectly good ways of doing it. Although, it is nice to be able to have some control over who or what accesses the water that comes out from the well. That way no small animals or children can fall therein. This is why when Jesus came to see the Samaritan woman later, she complained about the well being not deep enough to be readily accessed by ordinary means. For this, Jesus would have needed something to draw with. This could be a bucket attached to a rope or even a perfectly good pitcher let down carefully by degrees.
Either way though, it is clear he would have needed some sort of assistance with it, due to the dangers being found of falling in himself. On the other hand, he the well was likely lined allowing him to rest in safety beside it, waiting for some unsuspecting passerby to come up and have a chat. Doing it this way often ensured enough water all the way from the time of Jacob which dug the well all the way to Jesus, roughly several thousand years later, give or take a little. Back to what we were discussing though before I got so rudely interrupted. My, that sure was a long wait. Anyhow, we were looking at the tent dwellers just before the cities of refuge. With the tent dwellers, moving was easy. They would dig these resources such as wells and other establishments, then leave them for a time.
When the people later came back around again to the area, they knew these wells or oasis were always there and waiting for their use. It really gave a degree of freedom for that time and an ability to adapt to an ever-changing landscape. That was also how they drew their maps based on whatever altars, stone piles, wells, and other structures they had built thereon. Given they already lived in tents, it became relatively easy to pick up and move when the need arose. When they did so though, rarely did they ever forget to give the place a name based on what they experienced while staying there. Then again, it was rare they went without leaving something to mark the place behind. Since we are moving on the cities though, these must have some order. We will look at what that is again another time.