Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 19:8-10 
Context19:8 If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he promised your ancestors 1 and gives you all the land he pledged to them, 2 19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments 3 I am giving 4 you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities 5 to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood 6 in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. 7
1 tn Heb “fathers.”
2 tn Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.
3 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).
4 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”
5 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.
6 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).
7 tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”
