Deuteronomy 19:4

Summary

The verse opens the legal definition of the case of the manslayer who may flee to a city of refuge. It specifies two conditions: the killing must be unintentional (bivli da'at, "without knowledge") and there must have been no prior enmity between the killer and the victim.

Key words

• de.Var ("case of", H1697L) — masculine singular construct; opens a legal-definitional formula, "the matter of X," setting up the scope of the ruling that follows.
• ro.Tze.ach ("killer", H7523) — qal participle; a substantivized participle describing an ongoing identity ("the one who kills"), not a completed single act.
• ya.Nus ("he will flee", H5127) — qal imperfect; expresses a future/potential action, contrasted grammatically with the participle rotzeach, which describes an already-established state.
• bi.li- Da'at ("without knowledge", H1097 + H1847) — construct noun phrase, literally "in lack of knowledge"; functions as an adverbial idiom meaning "unintentionally."
• so.Ne' ("hating", H8130) — qal participle, negated by lo' ("not," H3808); describes a continuous emotional state rather than a single action, contrasted with the punctual verb yakeh ("he strikes").

What the text says

The sentence is built as a legal definition: ve.zeh de.var ha.rotzeach ("and this is the case of the killer") introduces a category to be specified by two following relative clauses, both marked by asher ("who," H0834A). The first clause (asher yanus shamah va.chai, "who flees there and lives") uses an imperfect verb followed by a sequential perfect (va.chai), a common Hebrew narrative pattern linking a future action to its consequence — fleeing results in living.

The second clause (asher yakeh et-re'ehu bivli da'at, "who strikes his companion without knowledge") defines the manner of killing using the construct phrase bivli da'at, "without knowledge," an idiom denoting lack of intent. The final clause, vehu lo-sone lo mitmol shilshom ("and he was not hating him from yesterday, the day before"), uses a negated participle (lo-sone) to describe a prior ongoing state rather than a specific act — the text is establishing that there was no pre-existing hostility, using the temporal idiom mitmol shilshom ("from yesterday, the third day") to mean "previously" or "in time past."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders de.var ("case/matter of") as πρόσταγμα ("ordinance/commandment"), shifting the sense from a legal case-description toward a formal decree. The Vulgate similarly translates it as lex ("law") and adds cujus vita servanda est ("whose life is to be preserved"), a clarifying phrase not present in the Hebrew. For bivli da'at, the LXX uses the participle οὐκ εἰδώς ("not knowing"), while the Hebrew uses a construct noun phrase; both convey unintentionality but through different grammatical means. The idiom mitmol shilshom is preserved literally in RV1909 ("desde ayer ni antes de ayer") but paraphrased in BSB as "without intending to harm him," which conveys the sense without reproducing the temporal idiom.