Numbers 35:20

Summary

Numbers 35:20 continues the legal description of an intentional killing, part of the asylum-city regulations. It presents a conditional case: if a man pushes another out of hatred, or throws something at him from ambush, and the victim dies, this constitutes intentional homicide rather than accidental death.

Key words

• sin'ah ("hatred", H8135) — feminine singular noun governed by the preposition be ("in/with"), marking the emotional motive behind the act, not merely accompanying circumstance.
• yehdafennu ("he will push him", H1920) — Qal imperfect 3rd masculine singular with 3rd masculine singular pronominal suffix ("him"); the imperfect form expresses a hypothetical, potential action inside the conditional clause.
• hishlikh ("he threw", H7993) — Hiphil (causative) perfect 3rd masculine singular; despite being grammatically "completed" (perfect), it functions as a second hypothetical alternative parallel to the imperfect verb before it.
• tzediyyah ("lying in wait", H6660) — feminine singular noun with prefixed be, describing the manner of the throwing act: from ambush or premeditated position.
• vayyamot ("and he died", H4191) — Qal narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect), marking the resulting consequence that closes the conditional sequence.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'im ("and if"), introducing a legal protasis with two alternative actions joined by 'o ("or"): pushing bе-sin'ah ("in hatred") or throwing bi-tzediyyah ("with lying-in-wait"). Both prepositional phrases function adverbially, specifying the mental state or method behind the physical act rather than simply describing the blow itself. Grammatically notable is the shift from imperfect (yehdafennu) to perfect (hishlikh) between the two alternatives — a common feature of Biblical Hebrew conditional syntax where tense does not strictly mark temporal sequence but presents parallel hypothetical scenarios. The clause concludes with the narrative vayyamot ("and he died"), using the standard narrative past form to state the resulting death, tying the hypothetical action to its consequence within the case-law structure typical of this chapter.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzediyyah ("lying in wait") with ἐξ ἐνέδρου ("from ambush") and adds πᾶν σκεῦος ("any object"), specifying a thrown object not explicitly named in the Hebrew, which only has hishlikh ("he threw") without a stated object. The Vulgate parallels this addition with quippiam ("something"), and translates tzediyyah as per insidias ("through plots/ambush"). Several modern translations (BSB "intentionally," SBLIBRE "con la intención de matarlo") interpret sin'ah ("hatred") and tzediyyah ("lying in wait") together as indicating premeditated intent, an interpretive gloss beyond the literal nouns "hatred" and "ambush" present in the Hebrew text.