אז יבדיל משה שלש ערים בעבר הירדן, "at that time Moses set aside three cities on the east bank of the Jordan.⁠" This introduction is to inform us that when Moses set aside these three cities on the east bank of the Jordan he immediately proceeded to renew the covenant God had concluded with the previous generation at Mount Sinai (chapter 5 which follows). Even though Moses was well aware that these three cities would not become operational as cities of refuge until the other three cities of refuge on the west bank of the Jordan had been set aside, he wanted to fulfill at least half the commandment while he was still alive. This should serve as an important lesson to us how to relate to the commandments in general. There certainly could hardly have been anyone who had performed more commandments during the previous 40 years since the Torah was given than Moses, who had taught all these commandments to the people. If he was so concerned as not to leave even a half a commandment unfulfilled this should be our inspiration to emulate him.
Perhaps this gives us a better insight into the true meaning of a comment by our sages according to which Moses became personally wealthy from the chips of the second set of Tablets which he had been told to fashion himself before coming up the mountain. The sages use the words פסל לך, "carve out for yourself" as meaning that the left-overs of this raw material became Moses' personal property and that we are speaking about a very precious kind of stone (compare Exodus 34,1 and the comment in Nedarim 38). A more ethically inspiring approach would be that God chose the word פסל, an allusion to פסולת, rejects, left-overs, to teach that even seemingly inconsequential commandments are to be rated highly. The true measure of Torah and mitzvah performance is not the attention we give the impressive commandments, the ones which command a high degree of visibility but the loving attention which we lavish on the apparently minor commandments, the ones frequently neglected as the person who performs them does not reap any recognition for them from his peers.

מזרחה שמש, "toward the rising sun.⁠" Our sages have said that anyone who kills a person has to flee eastward in the direction of the rising sun. Mortality was decreed upon man who was placed by God in Gan Eden which the Torah had described as east, i.e. מקדם. Exile is a reminder of this tragic first (disobedience) error committed by man. We also know that Kayin, who had slain his brother Hevel, was exiled in an easterly direction as he is reported subsequently to have settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Genesis 4,16).