What Does Numbers 35:16 Mean in the King James?
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.
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 victim’s death and the killer’s sentence share the Hebrew root מוּת (mût, to die), binding the fatal act to its consequence.
THE MEANING
An iron instrument strikes a person and death follows; the verse names the responsible striker as a murderer and states death as the sentence. The same death-root first marks what happens to the victim and then names what is imposed on the murderer, so neither the fatal act nor its consequence is blurred.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A fatal killing can be treated as an event with no accountable agent; this verse names the striker as a murderer and states the consequence.
THE ROOT
מוֹת יוּמָת
môt yûmāt
GROWS FROM
מות
to die; death
The victim’s death is stated with וַיָּמֹת (wayyāmot, and he dies); the sentence uses מוֹת יוּמָת (môt yûmāt, he shall surely be put to death), an emphatic infinitive paired with a passive verb. The repeated seed binds the death that happens to the judgment imposed.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: death
מָוֶת
This noun names what וַיָּמֹת (wayyāmot, and he dies) enacts in the victim clause.
mēt: dead; a dead person
מֵת
The same root names the state that follows the act of dying.
רֹצֵחַ
rōtsēaḥ
GROWS FROM
רצח
to murder; to slay
The verse does not leave the death as an event without an agent: רֹצֵחַ (rōtsēaḥ, murderer) names the person by the act’s category. This keeps the fatal blow and its legal consequence attached to the one who strikes.
ALSO GROWS
rāṣaḥ: to murder; to slay
רָצַח
The verb names the act from which the verse’s label for the responsible person is formed.
rōtsēaḥ: murderer
רֹצֵחַ
This form names the actor as responsible for the killing.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names the taking of life as an accountable act and states its consequence plainly.
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Cæsar.THE THREAD
Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.Numbers 35:30 repeats רֹצֵחַ (rōtsēaḥ, murderer), the same form used in this verse. The iron strike identifies what the law calls murder; the connected verse adds that the death sentence depends on the testimony of witnesses.
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