What Does Exodus 21:15 Mean?
And he who strikes his father or his mother is surely put to death.
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
And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.THE KEY
The offense is a physical blow, and Hebrew answers it with a death formula that repeats the word for dying.
THE MEANING
The verse names striking one’s father or mother as a grave bodily offense and assigns it the sentence of death. The Hebrew repeats the root for dying in that sentence, giving the consequence blunt force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It overturns the belief that striking a parent is only a private slight: the verse treats it as an offense with a life-and-death consequence.
THE ROOT
מַכֵּה
makkeh
GROWS FROM
נכה
to strike, strike down, or wound
“strikes” in this verse is makkeh. The word belongs to a striking family that can also name a blow or affliction. English gives the action as one verb; the Hebrew family keeps the image of an inflicted blow visible across its forms.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: a blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
The same root carries the image of striking into a noun for an inflicted blow or affliction.
hikkāh: struck or smote
הִכָּה
This verbal form shows the same root as an action landing on someone, clarifying the physical force in מַכֵּה.
מוֹת יוּמָת
mot yumat
GROWS FROM
מות
to die
The Hebrew repeats the root for dying: literally, “dying, he shall be put to death.” This emphatic construction is rendered “surely put to death,” leaving the consequence unmistakable.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: death
מָוֶת
The noun names directly what the repeated verb makes the sentence declare.
mēt: dead; one who has died
מֵת
This form names the resulting state, the endpoint the sentence places before the reader.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives direct violence against human life an explicit death consequence.
Whoever pours out the blood of man, by man his blood shall be poured out, for in the shape of God he made man.He who strikes a man so that he dies is surely put to death.Then Jesus said to him, Turn your sword back to its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.THE THREAD
He who strikes a man so that he dies is surely put to death.Both verses use נכה for the blow and repeat מות in the death sentence. The comparison sharpens the severity: Exodus 21:12 specifies that the struck man dies, while Exodus 21:15 states the death sentence without saying that the parent dies.
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