Exodus 21:19

Summary

The verse establishes a legal condition following a physical altercation: if the injured party recovers enough to rise and walk outside with the aid of a staff, the one who struck him is declared free of guilt. The striker is nevertheless required to compensate for the injured man's lost time and to ensure his complete healing.

Key words

• ya.Kum ("he will arise", H6965B) — qal imperfect, marks the future/hypothetical action that begins the condition introduced by 'im- ("if", H0518A).
• hit.ha.Lekh ("he will walk about", H1980I) — hithpael sequential perfect; the reflexive/intensive stem suggests a habitual or self-directed action of walking, continuing the sequence begun by ya.Kum.
• ni.Kah ("he will be free from guilt", H5352) — niphal sequential perfect; the passive/reflexive stem indicates that the striker's release from liability is a resulting state, not an action he performs himself.
• ma.Keh ("[one who] struck", H5221) — hiphil participle with article ha. ("the"); functions as a substantive, "the striker," identifying the responsible party as an ongoing designation rather than a single past act.
• ra.Po' yə.ra.Pe' ("certainly to heal / he will have [him] healed", H7495) — infinitive absolute followed by piel imperfect of the same root; this doubling construction intensifies or confirms the obligation to secure healing.

What the text says

The sentence is built as a conditional chain using 'im- ("if") followed by two verbs in sequence — ya.Kum ("he will arise") and hit.ha.Lekh ("he will walk about") — both describing the injured man's recovery, walking 'al-mish.'an.To ("on his staff", H4938B + H9023). The apodosis begins with ve.ni.Kah ha.ma.Keh, literally "and the striker will be cleared," using the niphal form ni.Kah to frame innocence as a resulting condition tied to the visible fact of the victim's mobility.

The second half of the verse shifts to compensation: rak ("only", H7535) introduces a restriction on the striker's freedom from guilt — he is not entirely free of obligation. He must give (yi.Ten, H5414N) payment for shiv.To ("his sitting still", H7674 + H9023, construct with suffix), a noun referring to the period of inactivity or downtime caused by the injury. The final clause uses the infinitive absolute ra.Po' paired with the finite verb ye.ra.Pe', both from the root H7495 ("to heal"), a construction that in Biblical Hebrew grammar emphasizes certainty or thoroughness of the action — here, that healing must be fully seen through, not merely paid for.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds ὁ ἄνθρωπος ("the man") explicitly as the subject of περιπατήσῃ ("he might walk"), a subject left implicit in the Hebrew through verb conjugation alone. The LXX also renders shiv.To ("his sitting still") as τῆς ἀργίας αὐτοῦ ("his idleness"), and the healing clause as καὶ τὰ ἰατρεῖα ("and the medical expenses"), shifting from the Hebrew's verbal emphasis on ensuring healing to a nominal reference to medical costs. The Vulgate similarly renders the healing obligation as operas ejus et impensas in medicos restituat ("restore his labors and expenses to physicians"), interpreting the infinitive-absolute construction as compensation for costs rather than as an intensified verbal act of healing.