Ulangan 21:1-3

Laws Concerning Unsolved Murder

21:1 If a homicide victim ¹  should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, ²  and no one knows who killed ³  him, 21:2 your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. ⁴  21:3 Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse ⁵  must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked – that has never pulled with the yoke –

Ulangan 21:6

21:6 and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse ⁶  must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ 

Ulangan 32:42

32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

and my sword will devour flesh –

the blood of the slaughtered and captured,

the chief ⁸  of the enemy’s leaders!’”

[21:1]  ¹ tn Heb “slain [one].” The term חָלָל (khalal) suggests something other than a natural death (cf. Num 19:16; 23:24; Jer 51:52; Ezek 26:15; 30:24; 31:17-18).

[21:1]  ² tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[21:1]  ³ tn Heb “struck,” but in context a fatal blow is meant; cf. NLT “who committed the murder.”

[21:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “surrounding the slain [one].”

[21:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “slain [one].”

[21:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “slain [one].”

[21:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “wadi,” a seasonal watercourse through a valley.

[32:42]  ⁸ tn Or “head” (the same Hebrew word can mean “head” in the sense of “leader, chieftain” or “head” in the sense of body part).