Numbers 35:23

Summary

Numbers 35:23 describes a case of accidental killing with a stone: a person causes a stone to fall on someone without having seen him, resulting in death. The verse closes the list of accident scenarios by stating that the one who caused the death held no enmity and was not seeking harm against the victim.

Key words

• 'Even ("stone", H0068G) — feminine singular noun in construct form after khol ("any"), forming "any stone of a kind that..."
• re'ot ("seeing", H7200G) — qal infinitive construct; combined with be + lo' ("without") it forms the idiom "without seeing," marking absence of visual awareness at the moment of action.
• yappel ("he caused to fall", H5307G) — hiphil (causative) narrative form; unlike a simple qal "it fell," the hiphil marks that the subject's action produced the fall, though this act is bracketed by "without seeing."
• 'oyev ("enemy", H0341) — qal participle, masculine singular, used predicatively in a nominal clause ("he [was] not an enemy") rather than a finite past-tense verb, describing an ongoing state rather than a completed action.
• mevaqqesh ("seeking", H1245) — piel (intensive) participle, paired with ra'ato ("his harm", H7451C) in construct, expressing sustained intent to cause harm, which the verse negates.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional clause continuing the list begun earlier in the chapter (marked by 'o, "or", H0176A): "or with any stone... which someone will die by it." The relative clause 'asher-yamut bah ("which he will die by it") uses the imperfect yamut (H4191) to describe a potential future death tied to the stone, with the pronominal suffix on bah ("in it/her") pointing back to 'even.

The circumstantial phrase be-lo re'ot ("without seeing") is placed before the narrative verbs wayyappel ("and he caused to fall") and wayyamot ("and he died"), both wayyiqtol (narrative past) forms of H5307G and H4191 respectively. Grammatically, the causative hiphil yappel shows the subject as the agent of the stone's fall, while the preceding "without seeing" clause qualifies that action as lacking visual awareness — the grammar holds together agency and absence of premeditation without resolving the tension explicitly; the following clauses do that work.

The final two clauses shift to nominal/participial constructions: hu' lo'-'oyev lo ("he [is] not an enemy to him") and lo' mevaqqesh ra'ato ("not one seeking his harm"). Using participles rather than finite verbs presents these as descriptions of ongoing disposition rather than single past actions, distinguishing this case from one involving hostile intent.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate text supplied ("et inimicitiis quidquam horum fecerit" — "and did any of these things through enmity") is markedly condensed compared to the Hebrew and the LXX, omitting the specific stone scenario (the falling stone, the lack of seeing) and reducing the verse to a general statement about the absence of enmity. The LXX follows the Hebrew structure closely, rendering be-lo re'ot as ouk eidōs ("not knowing/seeing") and preserving both participial negations (ouk echthros, oude zētōn kakopoiēsai) corresponding to 'oyev and mevaqqesh ra'ato.