What Does Deuteronomy 19:13 Mean?
Your eye shall not spare him, but you shall burn out the innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.THE KEY
The root behind “put away” also means “burn,” so the verse frames justice as clearing innocent blood from the community through a severe act.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks in the hard language of judgment: the person responsible for innocent blood is not to be spared. Israel’s well-being is bound to removing that bloodguilt from its midst.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that pity alone repairs the wrong: sparing the person responsible leaves innocent blood unaddressed.
THE ROOT
וּבִעַרְתָּ
uvi'arta
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ר
b-ʿ-r
To burn, consume, or clear away.
“burn out” in this verse is uvi'arta. English “put away” sounds like simple removal, but בָּעַר carries the image of burning or consuming. The same root describes purging evil from Israel, linking justice for innocent blood with clearing what cannot be left in the community.
ALSO GROWS
bo'er: Burning or kindled.
בֹּעֵר
This form adds the image of consuming heat to the root behind clearing away bloodguilt.
uvi'arta: Remove or purge from among the people.
וּבִעַרְתָּ
In Deuteronomy 17:7 this same verb is used to purge evil from the community, showing how the verse treats innocent blood as a matter that must be cleared from its midst.
נָקִי
naqi
GROWS FROM
נ־ק־ה
n-q-h
To be clean, clear, or free of guilt.
“innocent blood” in this verse is naqi. The Hebrew phrase is דַּם הַנָּקִי (dam ha-naqi), “the blood of the innocent.” The wording keeps the guiltless person at the center, while the KJV makes explicit the communal guilt bound to that blood.
ALSO GROWS
naqi: Clean, clear, or innocent.
נָקִי
This is the word describing the person whose blood must not be left unaddressed.
yenakkeh: Clear someone of guilt or hold them guiltless.
יְנַקֶּה
This verbal form shows the root’s connection to acquittal, sharpening the contrast between the innocent person and the bloodguilt the community must remove.
תָּחוֹס
taḥos
GROWS FROM
ח־ו־ס
ḥ-w-s
To spare, pity, or show concern for.
The verse places this choice in the eye: the person looking is told not to spare the offender. Pity here is a concrete withholding of judgment, set beside the duty to clear innocent blood.
ALSO GROWS
taḥos: Show pity or spare someone.
תָּחוֹס
This is the form used in the verse, where the eye is not to spare the person responsible.
taḥosu: Take concern for or spare something.
תָּחוֹסוּ
In Genesis 45:20 the same root is rendered “regard,” showing how its sense of concern can become an act of withholding or restraint.
THE PATTERN
A community cannot erase innocent blood by sparing the guilty or condemning the innocent; justice requires that the wrong be answered.
Keep yourself far from a false word; do not strike down the clean and the aligned, for I will not align the wicked.He who aligns the wicked, and he who convicts the aligned one, both are loathed by the LORD.THE THREAD
The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall burn the evil out from your midst.“Put away” translates the same verb, וּבִעַרְתָּ (uvi’arta), in both verses. In Deuteronomy 17:7 it purges evil; here it purges the blood of the innocent, making the community’s responsibility unmistakable.
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