Exodus 21:13

Summary

Exodus 21:13 establishes a legal distinction for a case of unintentional killing: the person did not lie in wait for the victim, but God caused the event to happen "into his hand." The text then states that a place will be designated for such a person to flee to.

Key words

• tzadah ("he was lying in wait", H6658A) — qal perfect, describing a completed, deliberate act of ambush; its negation with lo' ("not", H3808) removes premeditation from the case being described.
• 'inah ("he allowed to happen", H0579) — piel perfect of a root related to causing or bringing about; the piel stem here intensifies the causative sense, attributing the event's occurrence to ha-'Elohim ("the God", H0430G) rather than to human intent.
• yad ("hand", H3027H) — construct singular, forming the phrase "to his hand" (le-yado), an idiom for delivering someone or something into another's power or control.
• samti ("I will designate", H7760L) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative sequence begun by the previous clause; it marks the legal consequence that follows from the described circumstance.
• yanus ("he will flee", H5127) — qal imperfect, denoting an ongoing or future action, describing the purpose of the designated place.

What the text says

The verse opens with a conditional relative clause built on two parallel statements joined by ve ("and", H9002): first, the negated verb tzadah ("he was lying in wait", H6658A) establishes that the killer did not act with premeditation; second, the clause ve-ha-'Elohim 'inah le-yado ("and God allowed it to happen to his hand") attributes causation to 'Elohim using the piel verb 'inah ("he allowed to happen", H0579). The construct phrase le-yado ("to his hand") is an idiomatic way of expressing that the event came about through or into the person's hand, i.e., he became the instrument of the death without intending it.

The second half of the verse shifts to first-person speech with samti ("I will designate", H7760L), a qal perfect functioning as a sequential/consecutive form that carries the narrative forward as a legal consequence: a maqom ("a place", H4725) will be set aside. The relative clause 'asher yanus shammah ("where he will flee", combining H5127 and H8033G with the directional he H9011) describes the function of this place — somewhere the person may flee to, using the directional suffix on shammah ("there") to indicate motion toward a location.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the phrase differently in its structure, using ho de ouch hekōn ("but he not willing/voluntary") for the first clause, and ho theos paredōken eis tas cheiras autou ("God delivered [him] into his hands") for the second — where the Hebrew's le-yado ("to his hand," singular, referring to the killer's own hand) becomes tas cheiras autou ("his hands," plural) in Greek, and the causative verb 'inah is rendered with paredōken ("delivered"). The LXX also adds ho phoneusas ("the one who killed"), a specifying phrase not present in the Hebrew text as given. The Vulgate follows a similar pattern with tradidit in manus ejus ("delivered into his hands"), also pluralizing manus relative to the Hebrew singular yad.