Deuteronomy 19:1-18

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 19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else²⁴ 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 avenger²⁶ to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent²⁷ from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

Laws Concerning Witnesses

19:14 You must not encroach on your neighbor’s property,²⁸ which will have been defined²⁹ in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you.³⁰

19:15 A single witness may not testify³¹ against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established³² only on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 19:16 If a false³³ witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime,³⁴ 19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges³⁵ who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused,³⁶

[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.”

[19:11] ²⁴tn Heb “his neighbor.”

[19:11] ²⁵tn Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”

[19:12] ²⁶tn 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] ²⁷sn 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] ²⁸tn Heb “border.” Cf. NRSV “You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker.”

[19:14] ²⁹tn Heb “which they set off from the beginning.”

[19:14] ³⁰tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.” This phrase has been left untranslated to avoid redundancy.

[19:15] ³¹tn Heb “rise up” (likewise in v. 16).

[19:15] ³²tn Heb “may stand.”

[19:16] ³³tn 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] ³⁴tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).

[19:17] ³⁵tn The appositional construction (“before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges”) indicates that these human agents represented the Lord himself, that is, they stood in his place (cf. Deut 16:18-20; 17:8-9).

[19:18] ³⁶tn Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).