Deuteronomy 19:12

Summary

The verse describes the legal procedure for handing over a man who has fled to a city of refuge after committing homicide: the elders of his city send for him, retrieve him from that place, and deliver him into the hand of the "avenger of blood," resulting in his death.

Key words

• zik.Nei ("[the] elders of", H2205G) — construct plural, linking "elders" directly to "his city"; identifies the civic authority responsible for the action.
• go.'El ("[the] avenger of", H1350H) — a qal participle in construct form, literally "the one avenging/redeeming of"; describes an ongoing role/agent rather than a simple noun, and is bound to haDam ("the blood").
• sha.le.Chu, la.ke.Chu, na.te.Nu, Met — four sequential perfect verbs (H7971G, H3947G, H5414G, H4191) that form a chain of narrative actions: "they will send," "they will take," "they will give," "he will die," each continuing the sequence begun by the first verb.
• mi.Sham ("from there", H9006+H8033G) — simple locative adverb with preposition, referring back to the place mentioned earlier in the passage (the city of refuge), without further specification.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely on a chain of sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative vav (H9001): "they will send," "they will take," "they will give," and finally "he will die." This construction presents the four actions as one continuous legal sequence rather than as separate, isolated events — each verb picks up where the previous one left off. The subject of the first three verbs is "the elders of his city" (zik.Nei ir.o), a construct chain marking civic authority tied to the fugitive's home city.

The object of the action, the fled man, is marked twice by the untranslated direct object marker 'et (H0853) with a third-person suffix ("him"), first for being taken mi.Sham ("from there," H8033G) and then for being handed be.yad go.'El ha.Dam — "into the hand of the avenger of the blood." The participle go.'El (H1350H) describes an active, ongoing role — one who avenges or redeems — bound in construct to haDam ("the blood," H1818), producing the technical phrase "avenger of the blood." The final verb, va.Met ("and he will die," H4191), closes the sequence as its direct consequence, joined by the same narrative vav that structures the whole verse.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew mi.Sham ("from there," H8033G) is a bare locative adverb, while the Vulgate renders it as "de loco effugii" ("from the place of refuge"), adding an explanatory phrase not present in the Hebrew wording itself. Similarly, where the Hebrew has go.'El haDam ("avenger of the blood"), the Vulgate translates "proximi, cujus sanguis effusus est" ("the kinsman, whose blood was shed"), and RV1909 similarly reads "pariente del muerto" ("relative of the dead one"); both versions make explicit an interpretive identification of the go.'El as a kinsman, which the Hebrew participle itself does not spell out.