34:21 “On six days 2 you may labor, but on the seventh day you must rest; 3 even at the time of plowing and of harvest 4 you are to rest. 5
21:1 If a homicide victim 8 should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, 9 and no one knows who killed 10 him,
1 tn Heb “the famine [has been] in the midst of.”
2 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
3 tn Or “cease” (i.e., from the labors).
4 sn See M. Dahood, “Vocative lamed in Exodus 2,4 and Merismus in 34,21,” Bib 62 (1981): 413-15.
5 tn The imperfect tense expresses injunction or instruction.
6 tn The combination “a wadi with flowing water” is necessary because a wadi (נַחַל, nakhal) was ordinarily a dry stream or riverbed. For this ritual, however, a perennial stream must be chosen so that there would be fresh, rushing water.
7 sn The unworked heifer, fresh stream, and uncultivated valley speak of ritual purity – of freedom from human contamination.
8 tn Heb “slain [one].” The term חָלָל (khalal) suggests something other than a natural death (cf. Num 19:16; 23:24; Jer 51:52; Ezek 26:15; 30:24; 31:17-18).
9 tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
10 tn Heb “struck,” but in context a fatal blow is meant; cf. NLT “who committed the murder.”