Exodus 21:29

וְאִם שׁוֹר נַגָּח הוּא מִתְּמֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם וְהוּעַד בִּבְעָלָיו וְלֹא יִשְׁמְרֶנּוּ וְהֵמִית אִישׁ אוֹ אִשָּׁה הַשּׁוֹר יִסָּקֵל וְגַם־בְּעָלָיו יוּמָֽת׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְאִ֡ם שׁוֹר֩ נַגָּ֨ח ה֜וּא מִתְּמֹ֣ל שִׁלְשֹׁ֗ם וְהוּעַ֤ד בִּבְעָלָיו֙ וְלֹ֣א יִשְׁמְרֶ֔נּוּ וְהֵמִ֥ית אִ֖ישׁ א֣וֹ אִשָּׁ֑ה הַשּׁוֹר֙ יִסָּקֵ֔ל וְגַם־בְּעָלָ֖יו יוּמָֽת׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐὰν δὲ ὁ ταῦρος κερατιστὴς ᾖ πρὸ τῆς ἐχθὲς καὶ πρὸ τῆς τρίτης, καὶ ρωνται τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ μὴ ἀφανίσῃ αὐτόν, ἀνέλῃ δὲ ἄνδρα ἢ γυναῖκα, ὁ ταῦρος λιθοβοληθήσεται καὶ ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ προσαποαι.

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Quod si bos cornupeta fuerit ab heri et nudiustertius, et contestati sunt dominum ejus, nec recluserit eum, occideritque virum aut mulierem: et bos lapidibus obruetur, et dominum ejus occident.

Spanish

Pero si el toro ya tenía la costumbre de atacar, y el dueño estaba advertido pero no lo encerró, si ese toro mata a un hombre o a una mujer, matarán a pedradas al toro y también condenarán a muerte a su dueño.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Pero si el buey era acorneador desde ayer y antes de ayer, y á su dueño le fué hecho requerimiento, y no lo hubiere guardado, y matare hombre ó mujer, el buey será apedreado, y también morirá su dueño.

English

But if the ox has a habit of goring, and its owner has been warned yet does not restrain it, and it kills a man or woman, then the ox must be stoned and its owner must also be put to death.

✦ What the text says

Summary

This verse addresses the case of an ox with a known history of goring, where the owner had been formally warned but failed to restrain the animal, resulting in a human death. Both the ox and its owner face the death penalty. This contrasts with the preceding verse (21:28), where an ox that gores without prior warning is stoned but the owner is not held liable.

Key words

na.Gach ("prone to gore", H5056) — an adjective describing habitual behavior, not a single incident; combined with mi.Tmol shil.Shom ("from yesterday, three days ago", H8543/H8032), an idiom meaning "previously" or "habitually," establishing that this is a recurring pattern known before the fatal event.
hu.'Ad ("it has been protested/warned", H5749B) — a hophal (causative-passive) sequential perfect, indicating that a formal warning was given to the owner by others; the passive form removes the identity of the warner but marks the act as legally significant.
yish.me.Re.nu ("he will guard it", H8104I) — qal imperfect with a 3ms suffix ("it"), referring back to the ox; the negation lo' ("not", H3808) before it establishes the owner's failure to act despite the warning.
be.'a.La ("owner", H1167G, masculine plural construct) — grammatically plural in form though referring to a single owner, a common construct pattern in Biblical Hebrew for terms like "master/owner."
yu.Mat ("he will be put to death", H4191, hophal imperfect) — passive causative, paired with gam ("also", H1571), signaling that the owner's death sentence is an additional consequence layered onto the ox's stoning (yi.sa.Kel, H5619, niphal imperfect).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional chain introduced by ve'im ("and if", H9002/H0518A), followed by a sequence of narrative vav-consecutive perfects (hu.'Ad, he.Mit) that advance the storyline of events: the ox's known nature, the warning, the owner's negligence, and the resulting death. This chain structure ties the owner's liability directly to a documented prior warning — the passive form hu.'Ad implies that someone testified or warned the owner, though the text does not specify who.

The final clause splits into two parallel niphal/hophal passive verdicts: yi.sa.Kel ("it will be stoned", H5619) for the ox and yu.Mat ("he will be put to death", H4191) for the owner, both introduced by gam ("also", H1571), which grammatically marks the owner's punishment as additional to the ox's, not a substitute for it. The construct form be.'a.La ("owner", H1167G), though morphologically plural, functions as a singular referent, a feature that grammar alone does not explain but is standard for this word.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders na.Gach ("prone to gore") as κερατιστὴς ("horn-striker"), a descriptive noun rather than the Hebrew's adjectival participle form, but preserves the sense of habitual behavior. Where the Hebrew has the passive hu.'Ad ("it has been protested/warned", H5749B) without naming an agent, the LXX supplies μαρτυρῶνται ("they testify") with an implied plural subject, making explicit what the Hebrew leaves unspecified. The Vulgate's contestati sunt ("they have testified") similarly supplies an active plural subject not present in the Hebrew passive construction.

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