What Does Numbers 35:19 Mean?
The blood-redeemer himself shall strike down the crusher; when he meets him, he shall strike him down.
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
The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.THE KEY
The verse names the blood-avenger a go’el, a kin-reclaimer, binding lethal retribution to the family’s claim over spilled blood.
THE MEANING
The slain person’s blood becomes a claim borne by the kin-reclaimer; when he meets the murderer, he kills him. The sentence names that killing directly and binds it to the kinsman’s role.
THE ROOT
גֹּאֵל הַדָּם
go’el ha-dam
GROWS FROM
גָּאַל
gā’al
Redeem, reclaim, or act as kin to recover what has been lost.
“blood-redeemer” in this verse is go’el ha-dam. The word translated “revenger” is גֹּאֵל (go’el), a kinsman who reclaims what is lost. Here, the claim is blood: the same root that can describe a relative restoring family property names the relative who answers a murder with the murderer’s death.
ALSO GROWS
go’el: A redeemer or kinsman who reclaims.
גֹּאֵל
This is the word used for the blood-avenger here, tying his act to a kinship claim.
ge’ullah: Redemption or the right to reclaim.
גְּאֻלָּה
Used for the redemption of land, this branch shows the root’s wider sense of recovery within family ties.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats bloodshed as a claim that must be answered, while placing bounds on who answers it and how.
Whoever pours out the blood of man, by man his blood shall be poured out, for in the shape of God he made man.And they shall be cities of escape for you from the blood-redeemer, so that the crusher does not die until he stands before the assembly for judgment.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
If your brother totters and sells some of his holding, and his nearest blood-redeemer comes to him, then he shall buy back what his brother sold.The kin who comes to redeem is גֹּאֵל (go’el), from the same root as “revenger” here. The shared root links reclaiming a family’s lost land with answering a family’s shed blood.
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