Exodus 21:23

Summary

Exodus 21:23 presents the apodosis of a casuistic legal formula: if 'ason ("harm", H0611) occurs, the responsible party must give nefesh ("life", H5315H) tachat ("in place of", H8478H) nefesh ("life", H5315H). The verse establishes a talionic principle expressed through exact grammatical parallelism between the two occurrences of the same noun.

Key words

• 'ason ("harm", H0611) — masculine singular noun, functioning as the subject of the conditional clause; it is a generic term for injury or mishap, not specifying type or severity.
• yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect of the verb "to be," marking the protasis (if-clause) as a hypothetical or future condition.
• natattah ("you will give", H5414N) — qal sequential perfect (weqatal), 2nd person masculine singular; this form follows an imperfect in the protasis and shifts the clause into the apodosis (result), a standard construction in Hebrew casuistic law.
• nefesh ("a life", H5315H) — feminine singular noun, appearing twice; the first instance is the object given, the second is what it replaces.
• tachat ("in place of", H8478H) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linking the two instances of nefesh to express substitution.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two syntactic units. The protasis, introduced by ve'im ("and if"), places 'ason as subject before the imperfect verb yihyeh, a common word order for conditional clauses in Biblical Hebrew law codes. The apodosis begins with the conjunction ve- attached to the sequential perfect natattah, a grammatical signal that this clause is a consequence dependent on the prior imperfect, not an independent statement. The formula nefesh tachat nafesh uses the same noun twice, joined by the construct-state term tachat, producing a mirrored structure ("life" / "in place of" / "life") that expresses exact equivalence between what is given and what is owed. No qualifying adjective specifies what kind of 'ason is meant — the noun itself is broad, covering unspecified injury or misfortune.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'ason ("harm") is rendered in the LXX as ἐξεικονισμένον, a term relating to "having been formed" or "shaped," a notably different lexical choice from the Hebrew's generic harm. The Vulgate renders the same clause with mors ("death"), which narrows the broader Hebrew term to a specific fatal outcome. The English and Spanish versions given (BSB "serious injury," RV1909 "muerte," SBLIBRE "daño grave") likewise split between the broader "injury" sense and the narrower "death" sense reflected in the Vulgate.