Exodus 22:3

Summary

The verse presents two conditional clauses. The first concerns what happens if ha-shemesh ("the sun", H8121) has zarechah ("risen", H2224) upon a person — a statement about damim ("bloods", H1818) being attributed to him — followed by an emphatic command to repay. The second clause states that if the person has nothing to give, he is to be sold to cover the genevato ("his theft", H1591).

Key words

• zarechah ("it has risen", H2224) — qal perfect, 3rd feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun shemesh ("sun"); marks a completed condition, "once the sun has risen."
• damim ("bloods", H1818) — masculine plural noun; the plural form is used idiomatically in this construction to denote bloodguilt attached to a person, rather than literal multiple bloods.
• shallem yeshallem ("he shall surely repay", H7999A) — infinitive absolute followed by an imperfect of the same root; this doubling is a grammatical device that intensifies the verb, expressing certainty or obligation ("surely/certainly repay").
• nimkar ("he will be sold", H4376) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the subject is acted upon rather than acting, and the sequential form ties this clause to what precedes it in the narrative chain.
• genevato ("his theft", H1591) — feminine singular noun in construct with a pronominal suffix, meaning "the theft belonging to him," specifying the amount or object for which restitution or sale is required.

What the text says

The Hebrew is built from two parallel conditional units, each opened by 'im ("if", H0518A). The first unit sets a temporal condition — zarechah ha-shemesh 'alav ("the sun has risen upon him") — and its consequence is expressed through the short nominal clause damim lo ("bloods [belong] to him"), using the plural noun damim rather than a verb, which places the bloodguilt as a state attributed to a subject rather than an action performed. This is immediately followed by the emphatic construction shallem yeshallem ("he shall surely repay"), built from an infinitive absolute plus a finite imperfect of the same piel root H7999A, a common way in Biblical Hebrew to stress the certainty of an obligation.

The second unit shifts to a different condition, 'im 'ein lo ("if there is nothing to him"), using the construct noun 'ein ("nothing/there is not", H0369) to state a lack of means. Its consequence, venimkar bi-genevato ("and he will be sold for his theft"), uses the niphal (passive) form nimkar, showing the subject undergoing the sale rather than performing it, linked to the first clause by the narrative vav (H9001) that continues the sequence of legal outcomes.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew clause damim lo, shallem yeshallem ("bloods are to him; he shall surely repay") differs from LXX, which reads ἔνοχός ἐστιν, ἀνταποθανεῖται ("he is guilty, he will die in return"), and from the Vulgate, homicidium perpetravit, et ipse morietur ("he has committed homicide, and he himself will die"). Where the Hebrew text pairs bloodguilt with a repayment obligation, the LXX and Vulgate both render this section with a death consequence instead of a repayment clause. The second conditional clause (concerning having nothing and being sold for the theft) is rendered consistently across Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate.