What Does Numbers 35:18 Mean in the King James?

Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.

Numbers 35:18 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The root ⁨מות⁩ (mût, “die”) repeats from the weapon’s lethal capacity through the victim’s death to the killer’s sentence, making the judgment echo the harm.

THE MEANING

The line holds the instrument, the strike, and the death together: when someone strikes with a wooden hand weapon capable of killing and the person dies, the verse names the striker a murderer. It states the consequence plainly: the murderer is put to death.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse undoes the belief that a wooden weapon makes a killing less serious: its material does not erase its lethal capacity or the death that follows.

THE ROOT

רֹצֵחַ

rōṣēaḥ

GROWS FROM

רצח

rāṣaḥ: to murder or slay.

“murderer” in this verse is rōṣēaḥ. The person is named from the same root as the act: the verse identifies someone who murders. It keeps the human agent attached to the death rather than speaking of an outcome without a doer.

ALSO GROWS

rāṣaḥ: to murder, slay

רָצַח

This verb is the action under judgment here; the same root links the deed to the name given to the person who does it.

tirtsaḥ: you shall murder, kill

תִּרְצָח

This form of the same root appears in the prohibition in Exodus 20:13, joining that command to the concrete case in this verse.

יָמוּת

yāmût

GROWS FROM

מות

mût: to die, be dead.

The root ⁨מות⁩ (mût, “die”) recurs in the weapon’s lethal capacity, the victim’s actual death, and the sentence that the killer shall be put to death. One seed carries possibility, outcome, and judgment through the line, so the penalty echoes the death the verse names.

ALSO GROWS

māvet: death

מָוֶת

The noun names the outcome that the repeated death-root makes central to the verse.

yūmat: he shall be put to death

יוּמַת

This form carries the same root into the stated penalty, linking the sentence to the death that precedes it.

THE PATTERN

Scripture keeps lethal violence tied to the agent, the circumstances, and its consequences.

He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.

Exodus 21:12 · KJVLike Numbers 35:18, it joins a person’s strike and the death that follows to a stated death penalty.

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;

Deuteronomy 19:4 · KJVIt marks different circumstances, an unintentional killing without prior hatred, and names refuge as the response.

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.

Matthew 26:52 · KJVIt links taking up a weapon to death by that weapon, carrying the means-and-consequence pattern into a saying about violence.

THE THREAD

Thou shalt not kill.

Exodus 20:13 · KJV

Exodus 20:13 and Numbers 35:18 share ⁨רצח⁩ (rāṣaḥ, “to murder or slay”): Exodus uses the verb, while Numbers uses its “murderer” form for the person in this case. The short prohibition opens into a concrete boundary: a lethal blow with a hand weapon and the death it causes are named as murder.

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