Deuteronomy 19:2-13

19:2 you must set apart for yourselves three cities ¹  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 ²  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, ³  if he has accidentally killed another ⁴  without hating him at the time of the accident. ⁵  19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else ⁶  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ⁷  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ⁸  from the handle and strikes ⁹  his fellow worker ¹⁰  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ¹¹  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ¹²  19:6 Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, ¹³  and kill him, ¹⁴  though this is not a capital case ¹⁵  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 ¹⁶  and gives you all the land he pledged to them, ¹⁷  19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹⁸  I am giving ¹⁹  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ²⁰  to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood ²¹  in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. ²²  19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else ²³  and stalks him, attacks him, kills him, ²⁴  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 ²⁵  to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent ²⁶  from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

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¹ sn These three cities, later designated by Joshua, were Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem, and Hebron (Josh 20:7-9).

² tn Heb “border.”

³ tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”

⁴ tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”

⁵ 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.”

⁶ tn Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”

⁷ tn Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”

⁸ tn Heb “the iron slips off.”

⁹ tn Heb “finds.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “his neighbor.”

¹¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹² tn Heb “and live.”

¹³ tn Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.

¹⁵ tn Heb “no judgment of death.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “fathers.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.

¹⁸ 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 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”

²⁰ 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.

²¹ 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).

²² tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”

²³ tn Heb “his neighbor.”

²⁴ tn Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”

²⁵ 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.

²⁶ 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).