Deuteronomy 19:1-10

Context

Laws Concerning Manslaughter

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he¹ is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses, 19:2 you must set apart for yourselves three cities² in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession. 19:3 You shall build a roadway and divide into thirds the whole extent³ of your land that the Lord your God is providing as your inheritance; anyone who kills another person should flee to the closest of these cities. 19:4 Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live,⁴ if he has accidentally killed another⁵ without hating him at the time of the accident.⁶ 19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else⁷ to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax⁸ to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose⁹ from the handle and strikes¹⁰ his fellow worker¹¹ so hard that he dies. The person responsible¹² may then flee to one of these cities to save himself.¹³ 19:6 Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him,¹⁴ and kill him,¹⁵ though this is not a capital case¹⁶ since he did not hate him at the time of the accident. 19:7 Therefore, I am commanding you to set apart for yourselves three cities. 19:8 If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he promised your ancestors¹⁷ and gives you all the land he pledged to them,¹⁸ 19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments¹⁹ I am giving²⁰ you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities²¹ to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood²² in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty.²³

[19:1] ¹tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[19:2] ²sn These three cities, later designated by Joshua, were Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem, and Hebron (Josh 20:7-9).

[19:3] ³tn Heb “border.”

[19:4] ⁴tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”

[19:4] ⁵tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”

[19:4] ⁶tn Heb “yesterday and a third (day)” (likewise in v. 6). The point is that there was no animosity between the two parties at the time of the accident and therefore no motive for the killing. Cf. NAB “had previously borne no malice”; NRSV “had not been at enmity before.”

[19:5] ⁷tn Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”

[19:5] ⁸tn Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”

[19:5] ⁹tn Heb “the iron slips off.”

[19:5] ¹⁰tn Heb “finds.”

[19:5] ¹¹tn Heb “his neighbor.”

[19:5] ¹²tn Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:5] ¹³tn Heb “and live.”

[19:6] ¹⁴tn Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”

[19:6] ¹⁵tn Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.

[19:6] ¹⁶tn Heb “no judgment of death.”

[19:8] ¹⁷tn Heb “fathers.”

[19:8] ¹⁸tn Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.

[19:9] ¹⁹tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).

[19:9] ²⁰tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”

[19:9] ²¹sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.

[19:10] ²²tn Heb “innocent blood must not be shed.” The Hebrew phrase דָּם נָקִי (dam naqiy) means the blood of a person to whom no culpability or responsibility adheres because what he did was without malice aforethought (HALOT 224 s.v דָּם 4.b).

[19:10] ²³tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”