What Does Numbers 35:17 Mean?
And if he strikes him with a hand-stone, a stone by which he may die, and he dies, he is a crusher; the crusher shall surely be 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 if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.THE KEY
The stone that brings death also brings the name רֹצֵחַ (rōṣēaḥ, murderer), joining weapon, outcome, and judgment in one line.
THE MEANING
When a hand-thrown stone strikes with lethal force and death follows, the act receives the name “murder,” and the sentence is death. The verse binds the deed, the name, and the consequence together.
THE ROOT
רֹצֵחַ
rōṣēaḥ
GROWS FROM
רצח
to murder or slay
“crusher” in this verse is rōṣēaḥ. The noun רֹצֵחַ (rōṣēaḥ, murderer) and the verb רָצַח (rāṣaḥ, murder or slay) share the three consonants ר-צ-ח (r-ṣ-ḥ). Hebrew keeps the doer’s name visibly grown from the act; the verse repeats that name when it states the sentence, binding the classification and consequence.
ALSO GROWS
rāṣaḥ: to murder or slay
רָצַח
The verb names the act from which the verse’s designation רֹצֵחַ (rōṣēaḥ, murderer) is formed.
rōṣēaḥ: murderer
רֹצֵחַ
The verse uses this agent noun for the one whose blow causes death, then repeats it as the sentence is stated.
THE PATTERN
Lethal violence is named by its act and bound to a mortal 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.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
And if he strikes him with an implement of iron, so that he dies, he is a crusher; the crusher shall surely be put to death.Numbers 35:16 uses the same root רצח (rāṣaḥ, murder) and repeats the same sentence after a blow with iron. The stone in verse 17 is another instrument in the same pattern: the act, its name, and its consequence stay linked.
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