Leviticus 24:17

Summary

The verse establishes a casuistic law: if a man strikes down any human life, he must certainly be put to death. The Hebrew uses a conditional clause followed by an emphatic passive verdict formula typical of legal apodictic statements in this chapter.

Key words

• 'Ish ("anyone", H0376I) — masculine singular noun introducing the legal subject; paired with ki ("if", H3588A) it opens a conditional/casuistic clause common in legal formulations.
• yakkeh ("he will strike down", H5221) — hiphil (causative) imperfect of the root meaning "to strike"; the causative stem indicates the subject actively causes the fatal blow, not merely receives or witnesses it.
• nefesh ("life of", H5315H) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking to 'adam ("humankind", H0120G); together kol-nefesh 'adam ("any life of humankind", H3605+H5315H+H0120G) designates the victim in general terms, not a specific class of person.
• mot ("certainly ", H4191) — qal infinitive absolute; placed before the finite verb of the same root, it intensifies or confirms the action expressed by the following verb, a construction with no single-word equivalent in English.
• yumat ("he will be put to death", H4191) — hophal (causative passive) imperfect; same root as mot, but here in the passive causative stem, indicating that the death is imposed by an external agent (the legal community) rather than occurring naturally.

What the text says

The clause opens with ve'ish ki ("and a man, if"), a standard casuistic legal opening that sets a hypothetical scenario before stating its consequence. The verb yakkeh (hiphil imperfect of H5221) describes the causing of a fatal strike against kol-nefesh 'adam, a construct phrase literally "any life of a human," which broadens the object of protection beyond a narrow category to human life in general. The consequence is expressed through the infinitive absolute plus finite verb pattern mot yumat, both from the root H4191 ("to die"). This doubling — infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb from the same root — is a common Biblical Hebrew intensifying construction, here rendered by translations as "he must surely be put to death" or "certainly be put to death." The final verb is in the hophal stem, marking the passive-causative sense: the man does not die on his own but is put to death by an external legal action.

Differences between versions

The LXX inserts an additional clause, καὶ ἀποθάνῃ ("and he dies"), which has no separate lexical counterpart in the Hebrew text; the Hebrew's mot yumat already conveys certainty of death through verb doubling within a single root, while the LXX expresses this with two distinct verbs (πατάξῃ, "strikes," and ἀποθάνῃ, "dies"). The Vulgate similarly adds occiderit ("shall have killed") alongside percusserit ("shall have struck"), producing two sequential actions where the Hebrew presents a single verb (yakkeh) followed by the emphatic death-penalty formula.