What Does Joshua 20:5 Mean in the King James?
And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime.
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 verse does not let a real death collapse into proof of murderous intent.
THE MEANING
When you face harm, the fact that harm occurred does not by itself prove that it was intended. This verse holds a person outside the avenger’s grasp while the difference between an accidental blow and settled hatred remains visible. The death stays fully named; what is withheld is the assumption that it proves malice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A death automatically proves hatred and makes immediate vengeance just.
THE ROOT
גֹּאֵל הַדָּם
gōʾēl haddām
GROWS FROM
גאל
g-ʾ-l
To reclaim or redeem as a kinsman; in this phrase, to pursue a claim on behalf of blood kin.
“avenger of blood” in this verse is gōʾēl haddām. The pursuer is called a גֹּאֵל (gōʾēl, kinsman-redeemer), the same kinship word used for one who reclaims what belongs to the family. The verse places that family claim inside a boundary: kinship does not erase the difference between an accidental death and hatred.
ALSO GROWS
gōʾēl: Kinsman-redeemer; a relative who reclaims or acts on behalf of family.
גֹּאֵל
This is the word used for the blood-avenger, joining family protection and vengeance within one role.
gāʾal: To redeem or reclaim as a kinsman.
גָּאַל
This branch shows the root’s wider sense of reclaiming for kin, a claim the verse limits when the killing is unwitting.
יַסְגִּירוּ
yasgîrû
GROWS FROM
סגר
s-g-r
To shut or close; in a causative form, to hand over or surrender.
English “deliver up” can sound like a neutral transfer, but the Hebrew verb belongs to a root that also means to shut or close. The refuge keeps the slayer from being handed over and closed within the avenger’s reach.
ALSO GROWS
sāgar: To shut or close.
סָגַר
This basic sense gives the act of handing someone over a forceful edge: the person is placed within another’s power.
hisgîr: To hand over or surrender.
הִסְגִּיר
This form shows how the root’s sense of closing extends to surrendering someone into another person’s grasp.
בִּבְלִי־דַעַת
bivli-daʿat
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“unwittingly” in this verse is bivli-daʿat. The Hebrew phrase is literally “without knowledge”; it names what is absent while leaving the death and the need for judgment intact. Lack of prior hatred does not make the harm unreal.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This verb can describe knowing by encounter, so the phrase points to what the person did not know or intend in the moment.
daʿat: Knowledge or awareness.
דַּעַת
This noun gives “unwittingly” its literal shape: the blow occurs without knowledge, not without consequence.
THE PATTERN
Protection interrupts the rush from injury to retaliation so the case can be judged beyond the injured party’s immediate grasp.
And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour, that he die; he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live:Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.THE THREAD
And this is the case of the slayer, which shall flee thither, that he may live: Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past;The Hebrew phrase בִּבְלִי־דַעַת (bivli-daʿat, “without knowledge”) appears in both verses. Deuteronomy names the same boundary directly: the death is real, while the act is without knowledge and the person was not previously an enemy.
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