Exodus 21:30
אִם־כֹּפֶר יוּשַׁת עָלָיו וְנָתַן פִּדְיֹן נַפְשׁוֹ כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־יוּשַׁת עָלָֽיו׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
אִם־כֹּ֖פֶר יוּשַׁ֣ת עָלָ֑יו וְנָתַן֙ פִּדְיֹ֣ן נַפְשׁ֔וֹ כְּכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־יוּשַׁ֖ת עָלָֽיו׃
ἐὰν δὲ λύτρα ἐπιβληθῇ αὐτῷ, δώσει λύτρα τῆς ψυχῆς ὅσα ἐὰν ἐπιβάλωσιν αὐτῷ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Quod si pretium fuerit ei impositum, dabit pro anima sua quidquid fuerit postulatus.
Si se le permite al dueño pagar un rescate por su vida, deberá pagar todo lo que se le exija.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Si le fuere impuesto rescate, entonces dará por el rescate de su persona cuanto le fuere impuesto.
If payment is demanded of him instead, he may redeem his life by paying the full amount demanded of him.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes a conditional legal provision: if a kofer ("a ransom", H3724A) is imposed upon the responsible party, he must pay the ransom for his life according to whatever amount is set. The clause uses a passive verbal construction to describe the imposition of this payment, without naming who imposes it.
Key words
- Kofer ("a ransom", H3724A) — masculine singular noun, the object being imposed; functions as the grammatical subject of the passive verb yushat.
- yu.Shat ("it will be imposed", H7896G) — hophal (causative-passive) imperfect, third person masculine singular; appears twice in the verse, describing an action done to the subject without specifying an agent.
- na.Tan ("he will give", H5414N) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative/legal sequence begun by the conditional clause; marks the resulting obligation once the condition is met.
- pid.Yon ("[the] ransom of", H6306B) — masculine singular noun in construct state, forming a genitive chain with the following word.
- naf.Sh...o ("his life", H5315H + H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct, completing the phrase "ransom of his life/soul," with the pronominal suffix marking possession.
What the text says
The sentence opens with the conditional particle 'im ("if", H0518A), introducing a legal scenario. The subject of the protasis is kofer ("a ransom", H3724A), and the verb governing it, yu.Shat (H7896G), is hophal — a causative-passive stem. This means the text states that a ransom "is imposed" without grammatically identifying who imposes it; the agent is left unexpressed, a feature the English or Spanish glosses (which sometimes supply "on him" as if by a court) cannot fully preserve.
The apodosis begins with ve- (H9001), a narrative/sequential vav attached to na.Tan (H5414N), a qal perfect functioning as a sequential form that continues the logical chain from the conditional clause — "and [then] he will give." The object of this giving is expressed through a construct chain: pid.Yon ("ransom of", H6306B) governs naf.sh-o ("his life", H5315H + H9023), literally "the ransom of his life," a genitive construction where the first noun is grammatically bound to the second.
The final clause repeats the same hophal verb, yu.Shat (H7896G), introduced by ka-khol 'asher ("according to all that", H3605 + H0834A), setting the amount of the ransom equal to whatever is imposed in the first instance — again passive, again without a stated agent.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders kofer as λύτρα (plural "ransoms/ransom payment") both times, matching the Hebrew's repeated passive construction with ἐπιβληθῇ / ἐπιβάλωσιν. The Vulgate uses "pretium" ("price") for kofer and shifts the second occurrence to "postulatus" ("having been demanded"), introducing an active-demand nuance not explicit in the Hebrew passive. The SBLIBRE Spanish version renders yu.Shat as "se le permite... pagar" ("he is permitted to pay"), introducing a permissive sense and naming "el dueño" ("the owner") explicitly, where the Hebrew leaves the subject of the obligation and the agent of imposition unstated.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.