22:2 “If a thief is caught 1 breaking in 2 and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. 3
21:18 “If men fight, and one strikes his neighbor with a stone or with his fist and he does not die, but must remain in bed, 4
1 tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).
2 tn The word בַּמַּחְתֶּרֶת (bammakhteret) means “digging through” the walls of a house (usually made of mud bricks). The verb is used only a few times and has the meaning of dig in (as into houses) or row hard (as in Jonah 1:13).
3 tn The text has “there is not to him bloods.” When the word “blood” is put in the plural, it refers to bloodshed, or the price of blood that is shed, i.e., blood guiltiness.
4 tn Heb “falls to bed.”