19:20 “‘When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, 1 although she is a slave woman designated for another man and she has not yet been ransomed, or freedom has not been granted to her, there will be an obligation to pay compensation. 2 They must not be put to death, because she was not free.
1 tn Heb “And a man when he lies with a woman the lying of seed.”
2 sn That is, the woman had previously been assigned for marriage to another man but the marriage deal had not yet been consummated. In the meantime, the woman has lost her virginity and has, therefore, lost part of her value to the master in the sale to the man for whom she had been designated. Compensation was, therefore, required (see the explanation in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 130-31).
3 tn Heb “Man man.” The reduplication is a way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 15:2; 17:3, etc.), but with a negative command it means “No man” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 147).
4 sn The diseases and discharges mentioned here are those described in Lev 13-15.
5 tn Heb “And the one.”
6 tn Heb “in all unclean of a person/soul”; for the Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) meaning “a [dead] person,” see the note on Lev 19:28.
7 tn Heb “or a man who goes out from him a lying of seed.”