translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: DEU

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.


text: Heb “border.”


text: Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”


text: Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”


text: Heb “yesterday and a third (day)” (likewise in v. 6 ). The point is that there was no animosity between the two parties at the time of the accident and therefore no motive for the killing. Cf. NAB “had previously borne no malice”; NRSV “had not been at enmity before.”


text: Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”


text: Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”


text: Heb “the iron slips off.”


text: Heb “finds.”


text: Heb “his neighbor.”


text: Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: Heb “and live.”


text: Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”


text: Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.


text: Heb “no judgment of death.”


text: Heb “fathers.”


text: Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.


text: Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema ( Deut 6:4-5 ).


text: Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”


text: Heb “innocent blood must not be shed.” The Hebrew phrase דָּם נָקִי ( dam naqiy ) means the blood of a person to whom no culpability or responsibility adheres because what he did was without malice aforethought ( HALOT 224 s.v דָּם 4.b).


text: Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”


text: Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”


text: The גֹאֵל הַדָּם ( go ’ el haddam , “avenger of blood”) would ordinarily be a member of the victim’s family who, after due process of law, was invited to initiate the process of execution (cf. Num 35:16-28 ). See R. Hubbard, NIDOTTE 1:789-94.


text: Heb “border.” Cf. NRSV “You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker.”


text: Heb “which they set off from the beginning.”


text: The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.” This phrase has been left untranslated to avoid redundancy.


text: Heb “rise up” (likewise in v. 16 ).


text: Heb “may stand.”


text: Heb “violent” ( חָמָס , khamas ). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.


text: Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).


text: The appositional construction (“before the Lord , that is, before the priests and judges”) indicates that these human agents represented the Lord himself, that is, they stood in his place (cf. Deut 16:18-20; 17:8-9 ).


text: Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).


text: Heb “you will burn out” ( בִּעַרְתָּ , bi ’ arta ). Like a cancer, unavenged sin would infect the whole community. It must, therefore, be excised by the purging out of its perpetrators who, presumably, remained unrepentant (cf. Deut 13:6; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7 ).