Keluaran 22:2

22:2 “If a thief is caught ¹  breaking in ²  and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. ³ 

Ulangan 19:6

19:6 Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, ⁴  and kill him, ⁵  though this is not a capital case ⁶  since he did not hate him at the time of the accident.

Ulangan 19:10

19:10 You must not shed innocent blood ⁷  in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. ⁸ 

[22:2]  ¹ tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[22:2]  ² tn The word בַּמַּחְתֶּרֶת (bammakhteret) means “digging through” the walls of a house (usually made of mud bricks). The verb is used only a few times and has the meaning of dig in (as into houses) or row hard (as in Jonah 1:13).

[22:2]  ³ tn The text has “there is not to him bloods.” When the word “blood” is put in the plural, it refers to bloodshed, or the price of blood that is shed, i.e., blood guiltiness.

[22:2]  sn This law focuses on what is reasonable defense against burglary. If someone killed a thief who was breaking in during the night, he was not charged because he would not have known it was just a thief, but if it happened during the day, he was guilty of a crime, on the assumption that in daylight the thief posed no threat to the homeowner’s life and could be stopped and made to pay restitution.

[19:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”

[19:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.

[19:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “no judgment of death.”

[19:10]  ⁷ tn 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).

[19:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”