What Does Numbers 35:31 Mean?
Moreover, you shall take no covering for the living soul of a crusher, who is owed death; but he 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
Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the refused payment a covering, and forbids that covering from standing in for the murderer’s life.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the consequence blunt: no payment is accepted for the life of a murderer guilty of death; he is put to death. The life taken cannot be reduced to a debt that money settles.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a murderer can buy release from death by paying for the life he took.
THE ROOT
כֹּפֶר
kofer
GROWS FROM
כפר
kaphar
cover
The word translated “satisfaction” is kofer, a covering price or ransom, from the root kaphar, “to cover.” The verse names this kind of covering and refuses it: no payment can stand in for the murderer’s life.
ALSO GROWS
kippur: covering
כִּפּוּר
This related form carries the same covering idea, while the verse declares that a payment cannot cover the murderer’s guilt or replace his life.
kappōret: cover or lid over the ark
כַּפֹּרֶת
The root’s tangible image is a cover; here, the text bars a monetary cover from being placed over the taking of a human life.
THE PATTERN
When blood is shed, Scripture makes the killer answer for the life taken rather than letting its value be absorbed by a substitute.
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 your eye shall not spare; living soul for living soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.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
If a covering is laid on him, then he gives for the ransom of his life whatever is laid upon him.Exodus uses the same Hebrew noun כֹּפֶר (kofer, ransom) for money paid to preserve a life. Numbers refuses that covering for a murderer condemned to die, making the prohibition sharper: the text recognizes ransom and denies it here.
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