Numbers 35:26

Summary

Numbers 35:26 opens a conditional clause describing what happens if the one who killed (הָרֹצֵחַ, ha-rotzeach) leaves the boundary of the city of refuge to which he had fled. The verse itself only states the condition; it does not yet give the consequence, which follows in the next verse.

Key words

• ya.Tzo' yeTze' ("to go out" / "he will go out", H3318G / H3318I) — infinitive absolute followed by the imperfect of the same root. This doubling is a Hebrew construction that intensifies or makes emphatic the verb's action, often rendered in translations as "if he ever goes out" or "shall indeed go out."
• ro.Tze.ach ("killer", H7523) — qal participle, masculine singular, with the definite article ha- ("the"). A participle functions like "the one who does/did [the action]," here designating the person as "the one who killed" rather than using a finite past-tense verb.
• ge.Vul ("border of", H1366G) — masculine singular construct noun, beginning a construct chain: "border of the city of refuge."
• mik.la.T ("refuge", H4733) — construct noun completing the chain with the pronominal suffix -o ("his"), giving "his city of refuge."
• ya.Nus ("he will flee", H5127) — qal imperfect, referring back to the earlier act of fleeing to that city, paired with the adverb sha.mah ("there," H8033G with directional -he, H9011) meaning "to there."

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional clause introduced by ve-'im ("and if," H9002 + H0518A), setting up a legal scenario. The core of the condition is the infinitive-absolute-plus-imperfect pair yatso yetze, both from the root H3318 ("to go out"). This grammatical doubling in Biblical Hebrew does not add a second action; it reinforces the single verb, marking the going-out as a definite, actual, or emphasized event — something translations render with words like "ever" or "indeed."

The subject of this emphasized action is ha-rotzeach, "the killer," a participle with the article, functioning as a substantive noun ("the one who killed") rather than a narrative past-tense verb. The place from which he goes out is expressed through a construct chain: gevul ("border of") + 'ir ("city of") + miklato ("his refuge"), literally "the border of the city of his refuge." This chain stacks three nouns in sequence, each governing the next, a common way Hebrew expresses possessive and descriptive relationships without separate prepositions.

The final clause, introduced by the relative 'asher ("where/that," H0834A), returns to the earlier flight: yanus shammah, "he fled there," using the directional suffix -mah attached to sham ("there") to indicate motion toward that place. The verse thus frames a spatial and temporal condition — leaving the boundary of the place he had earlier fled to — without yet stating what follows.