Numbers 35:17

Summary

This verse establishes a legal case for a person killed by being struck with a stone weapon "of the hand" that is capable of causing death. The text states that if the blow results in death, the one who struck it is legally designated a rotzeach ("killer/murderer", H7523) and must be executed.

Key words

• 'Even ("a stone of", H0068G) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linked to yad ("hand", H3027O) to form the phrase "stone of hand," specifying a handheld weapon rather than any stone.
• 'asher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle introducing a clause that qualifies the stone: it is one "which someone will die by it" (yamut bah), defining the weapon by its lethal potential rather than by size or material.
• hikahu ("he struck him", H5221) — hiphil perfect, a causative verb in completed aspect, indicating the finished act of striking; the hiphil stem marks that the subject caused the blow to occur.
• rotzeach hu ("he [is] a killer", H7523 + H1931) — qal participle followed by the independent pronoun hu, forming a nominal (verbless) clause of identification: the participle names an ongoing category/status ("one who kills") rather than a single completed action.
• mot yumat ("he will surely be put to death", H4191) — infinitive absolute (mot) paired with a finite hophal imperfect (yumat) of the same root, a construction that intensifies or emphasizes the verb; the hophal stem marks the passive-causative sense, "he will be caused to die."

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional (ve'im, "and if") legal clause. The protasis identifies the weapon: 'even yad ("a stone of hand"), further specified by the relative clause 'asher yamut bah ("which someone could die by it") — grammatically, this relative clause functions to qualify the stone as lethal-capable rather than describing size explicitly. The action sequence uses two different verb forms for "die/kill": hikahu (hiphil perfect, "he struck him," a completed causative act) followed by the narrative vayyamot (qal, "and he died"), a wayyiqtol form that continues the narrative chain and marks sequential result.

The consequence is expressed in two stages. First, rotzeach hu is a nominal clause — participle plus pronoun — that assigns a legal status ("he is a killer") rather than narrating an event; this participial form functions almost like a legal label. Second, the sentence closes with the infinitive absolute mot followed by the finite hophal yumat, a common Biblical Hebrew construction that intensifies the verb it accompanies: "he will surely be put to death." The hophal stem specifically marks the passive-causative sense — the subject undergoes an action caused by another agent (execution), distinct from the earlier qal and hiphil forms describing the killing itself.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate ("Si lapidem jecerit, et ictus occubuerit, similiter punietur") renders the passage without the "stone of hand" ('even yad) phrase or the relative clause about lethal capability, generalizing to "if he throws a stone." It also renders the emphatic mot yumat construction simply as "similiter punietur" ("he shall be punished similarly"), which does not convey the intensifying infinitive absolute + hophal imperfect pairing found in the Hebrew. The LXX ("ἐν λίθω ἐκ χειρὸς... θανάτῳ θανατούσθω") preserves both the "stone from hand" phrase and an emphatic construction (dative noun + imperative-like verb) that parallels the Hebrew's doubled root for "die/put to death."