What Does Exodus 21:12 Mean in the King James?
He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the root for death: the life taken and the sentence imposed are bound in one line.
THE MEANING
A person who strikes someone and causes their death faces death as the consequence named here. The repeated death-root joins the life taken to the judgment imposed. The verse speaks now about a community’s grave accounting for a life lost through violence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a fatal blow can be separated from its result: the death remains joined to the striker’s accountability.
THE ROOT
וָמֵת
va-met
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“die / surely put to death” in this verse is va-met. The clause says the struck man dies, then uses the same root in מוֹת יוּמָת (mot yumat), “he shall surely be put to death.” Hebrew repeats the death-root on both sides of the act, linking the life taken with the sentence imposed.
ALSO GROWS
mēt: Dead; one who has died.
מֵת
The victim’s death is named with this root before the sentence follows.
māvet: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun carries the same root into the consequence that the verse declares.
yûmat: He shall be put to death.
יוּמַת
This passive form names the sentence, completing the verse’s repeated death-root.
מַכֵּה
makkēh
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
To strike, smite, or wound.
“smiteth” in this verse is makkēh. The word names the striker through the act of striking. Its root also forms words for a blow and for someone struck, keeping the action and its injury within one family of words.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The noun makes the injury carried by the striking root visible.
mukkēh: Struck or afflicted.
מֻכֶּה
This form describes the one who bears the impact of the action.
THE PATTERN
A life taken through violence remains bound to an answerable consequence.
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.THE THREAD
And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.The next line sets a boundary around the death sentence: when a man has not lain in wait, a place of refuge is appointed. It shows the surrounding passage accounting for intent and circumstance alongside the death itself.
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