Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 19:1-16
Context19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he 1 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 cities 2 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 extent 3 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 another 5 without hating him at the time of the accident. 6 19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else 7 to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax 8 to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose 9 from the handle and strikes 10 his fellow worker 11 so hard that he dies. The person responsible 12 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 case 16 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 ancestors 17 and gives you all the land he pledged to them, 18 19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments 19 I am giving 20 you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities 21 to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood 22 in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. 23 19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else 24 and stalks him, attacks him, kills him, 25 and then flees to one of these cities. 19:12 The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger 26 to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent 27 from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
19:14 You must not encroach on your neighbor’s property, 28 which will have been defined 29 in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 30
19:15 A single witness may not testify 31 against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established 32 only on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 19:16 If a false 33 witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, 34
[19:1] 1 tn Heb “the
[19:2] 2 sn These three cities, later designated by Joshua, were Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem, and Hebron (Josh 20:7-9).
[19:4] 4 tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”
[19:4] 5 tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”
[19:4] 6 tn 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] 7 tn Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”
[19:5] 8 tn Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”
[19:5] 9 tn Heb “the iron slips off.”
[19:5] 11 tn Heb “his neighbor.”
[19:5] 12 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[19:6] 14 tn Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”
[19:6] 15 tn Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.
[19:6] 16 tn Heb “no judgment of death.”
[19:8] 18 tn Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.
[19:9] 19 tn 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] 20 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”
[19:9] 21 sn 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] 22 tn 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] 23 tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”
[19:11] 24 tn Heb “his neighbor.”
[19:11] 25 tn Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”
[19:12] 26 tn The גֹאֵל הַדָּם (go’el haddam, “avenger of blood”) would ordinarily be a member of the victim’s family who, after due process of law, was invited to initiate the process of execution (cf. Num 35:16-28). See R. Hubbard, NIDOTTE 1:789-94.
[19:13] 27 sn Purge out the blood of the innocent. Because of the corporate nature of Israel’s community life, the whole community shared in the guilt of unavenged murder unless and until vengeance occurred. Only this would restore spiritual and moral equilibrium (Num 35:33).
[19:14] 28 tn Heb “border.” Cf. NRSV “You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker.”
[19:14] 29 tn Heb “which they set off from the beginning.”
[19:14] 30 tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.” This phrase has been left untranslated to avoid redundancy.
[19:15] 31 tn Heb “rise up” (likewise in v. 16).
[19:15] 32 tn Heb “may stand.”
[19:16] 33 tn Heb “violent” (חָמָס, khamas). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.
[19:16] 34 tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).
