Deuteronomy 4:42

לָנֻס שָׁמָּה רוֹצֵחַ אֲשֶׁר יִרְצַח אֶת־רֵעֵהוּ בִּבְלִי־דַעַת וְהוּא לֹא־שֹׂנֵא לוֹ מִתְּמוֹל שִׁלְשׁוֹם וְנָס אֶל־אַחַת מִן־הֶעָרִים הָאֵל וָחָֽי׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

לָנֻ֨ס שָׁ֜מָּה רוֹצֵ֗חַ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִרְצַ֤ח אֶת־רֵעֵ֙הוּ֙ בִּבְלִי־דַ֔עַת וְה֛וּא לֹא־שֹׂנֵ֥א ל֖וֹ מִתְּמ֣וֹל שִׁלְשׁ֑וֹם וְנָ֗ס אֶל־אַחַ֛ת מִן־הֶעָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖ל וָחָֽי׃

Greek (Septuagint)

φεύγειν ἐκεῖ τὸν φονευτὴν ὃς ἂν φονεύσῃ τὸν πλησίον οὐκ εἰδώς, καὶ οὗτος οὐ μισῶν αὐτὸν πρὸ τῆς ἐχθὲς οὐδὲ πρὸ τῆς τρίτης· κα καταφεύξεται εἰς μίαν τῶν πόλεων τούτων, καὶ ζήσεται·

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

ut confugiat ad eas qui occiderit nolens proximum suum, nec sibi fuerit inimicus ante unum et alterum diem, et ad harum aliquam urbium possit evadere:

Spanish

para que huyera allí el homicida que matara a su prójimo sin querer y que no lo hubiera odiado en el pasado, y para que huyendo a una de estas ciudades pudiera vivir:

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Para que huyese allí el homicida que matase á su prójimo por yerro, sin haber tenido enemistad con él desde ayer ni antes de ayer; y que huyendo á una de estas ciudades salvara la vida:

English

to which a manslayer could flee after killing his neighbor unintentionally without prior malice. To save one ’s own life, he could flee to one of these cities:

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse states the purpose of the cities of refuge: a person who kills (rotzeach) their neighbor unintentionally may flee there. The text specifies that this killer did not previously hate the victim, and by fleeing to one of these cities, he will live.

Key words

ro.Tze.ach ("a killer", H7523) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing the ongoing identity/state of "the one who kills," used here as a substantive ("the killer/manslayer").
yir.Tzach ("he will kill", H7523) — same root as above but in qal imperfect, describing the future/potential action ("who kills/would kill"), distinguishing the act from the participial label.
bi.v.li-Da.'at ("without knowledge", H1097 + H1847) — construct phrase literally "in lack of knowledge," modifying the killing as unintentional.
so.Ne' ("hating", H8130) — qal participle describing a state (not hating), negated by lo' (H3808), establishing absence of prior enmity.
va.Chai ("and he will live", H2421) — sequential perfect continuing the narrative chain, marking the outcome of fleeing to the city.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a purpose clause using an infinitive construction: la.Nus ("to flee", H5127) governs the entire verse, explaining why the cities exist. The killer is first named with a participle (ro.Tze.ach, "the one who kills") and then the same verbal root reappears as an imperfect (yir.Tzach, "he will kill") in the relative clause "who kills his neighbor." This repetition of the root H7523 in two different grammatical forms (participle vs. imperfect) creates a legal-style definition: first naming the category (the killer), then specifying the circumstance (one who kills without da'at, "knowledge/intent").

The clause ve.hu lo-so.Ne' lo mi.te.Mol shil.Shom ("and he was not hating him from yesterday, the third day") uses an idiomatic time expression (mi.te.Mol shil.Shom, H8543 + H8032) meaning "beforehand, in the past," to establish that no prior hostility existed between killer and victim. The sentence then shifts into narrative sequence using vav-consecutive perfects (ve.Nas, "and he will flee"; va.Chai, "and he will live"), a common structure in legal/case narratives describing a chain of resulting actions: fleeing to a city, then living.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rotzeach as φονευτής ("murderer/slayer") and yirtzach as φονεύσῃ, using the same Greek root for both Hebrew forms, thus flattening the participle/imperfect distinction visible in Hebrew. The Vulgate uses "occiderit" for the killing but adds "nolens" ("unwillingly"), an interpretive addition not explicitly present in the Hebrew bivli-da'at ("without knowledge"), though conveying similar sense. The Vulgate also renders mi.te.Mol shil.Shom as "ante unum et alterum diem" ("before one day or another"), a paraphrase of the Hebrew idiom for "previously."

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.