What Does Numbers 35:20 Mean?
But if he shoves him in hatred, or throws something at him from lying in wait, so that he dies;
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
But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die;THE KEY
A killing’s hidden cause is already part of its visible act: the verse names hostility and ambush before it names death.
THE MEANING
Here, death is tied to hostility and a hidden approach. The visible blow does not tell the whole story by itself; the verse exposes the motive and preparation within the act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that only the outcome matters, while motive and preparation are irrelevant details.
THE ROOT
שִׂנְאָה
sin’ah
GROWS FROM
שׂנא
ś-n-ʾ
to hate or regard as an enemy
The Hebrew places “in hatred” directly before “he thrusts him”: hostility is the force within the motion. The same root forms “to hate” and “one who hates,” tying the inward stance to the person’s outward relation.
ALSO GROWS
śānēʾ: to hate
שָׂנֵא
This verb shows hatred as a directed stance toward another person, not a detached label.
śōnēʾ: one who hates; a hater
שֹׂנֵא
The same root can name the person by the hostility they carry, linking inner disposition with outward relation.
צְדִיָּה
tsediyyah
GROWS FROM
צדה
ṣ-d-h
to hunt or lie in wait
“lying in wait” in this verse is tsediyyah. The term translated “laying of wait” belongs to a root also used for hunting: the hidden attacker is pictured as one who hunts a target. Concealment is part of the violence’s design, joining inward hostility to an outward plan.
ALSO GROWS
tsādâ: to hunt; to lie in wait
צָדָה
The hunting sense casts the person targeted in an ambush as prey, making the deliberate pursuit visible beneath the English phrase.
tsediyyah: lying in wait; ambush
צְדִיָּה
This noun names the hidden setup itself, showing that concealment is part of the act.
THE PATTERN
An act of lethal harm is understood through both its outcome and the intention that moves it.
But if a man comes boiling upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile, you take him from my altar, that he may die.And this is the word concerning the slayer who shall flee there, that he may live. Whoever strikes his neighbor by straying, not hating him from yesterday or the day before;Everyone who hates his brother is a human-slayer. And you know that no human-slayer has the life of the ages remaining in him.THE THREAD
But if he shoves him suddenly, without enmity, or throws something upon him without lying in wait,The paired line reverses the marks in this verse: sudden action instead of ambush, and no enmity instead of hatred. It shows why motive and preparation matter: the parallel action is understood differently when both are absent.
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