Leviticus 24:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He who strikes a animal mortally shall make it good, life for life.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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יְשַׁלְּמֶ֑נָּה

shâlam

H7999

“to be at peace · her”

Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular

Appears 116× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 44:4

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2401c

to be in a covenant of peace, be at peace - (Qal) - to be at peace - peaceful one (participle) - (Pual) one in covenant of peace (participle) - (Hiphil) - to make peace with - to cause to be at peace - (Hophal) to live in peace - to be complete, be sound - (Qal) - to be complete, be finished, be ended - to be sound, be uninjured - (Piel) - to complete, finish - to make safe - to make whole or good, restore, make compensation - to make good, pay - to requite, recompense, reward - (Pual) - to be performed - to be repaid, be requited - (Hiphil) - to complete, perform - to make an end of

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
5: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וּמַכֵּ֥ה Hiphil · Participle Active
יְשַׁלְּמֶ֑נָּה Piel · Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

נֶֽפֶשׁ soul H5315 ×3

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Leviticus 24:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Leviticus 24:21 He who kills an animal shall make it good; and he who kills a man shall be put to death.
Exodus 21:34–36 the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Leviticus 24:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּמַכֵּ֥ה נֶֽפֶשׁ בְּהֵמָ֖ה יְשַׁלְּמֶ֑נָּה נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ

He who strikes a animal mortally shall make it good, life for life.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Leviticus 24:18 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὅς ἄν πατάσσω κτῆνος καί ἀποθνήσκω ἀποτίνω ψυχή ἀντί ψυχή

And whoever shall strike a beast, and it shall die, let him render life for life.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּדְיִקְטוֹל נְפַשׁ בְּעִירָא יְשַׁלְמִנַהּ נַפְשָׁא חֳלַף נַפְשָׁא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּדְיִקְטוֹל נְפַשׁ בְּעִירָא יְשַׁלְמִינָהּ נַפְשָׁא חֲלַף נַפְשָׁא

And he who destroyeth the life of an animal shall make it good, a living animal for a living one.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Leviticus 24:18 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, soul for soul.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) And he that killeth a beast.—The law about killing a human being is now followed by the enaetments with regard to killing a beast. He who kills an animal has to make it good by giving another animal for it. The case is not the same as that legislated for in Exo_21:33-34.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

18. There is no exact parallel for this direction in Exodus 21-23. Exo_21:33-34 is dealing with a different case.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour,.... Does him any hurt or mischief, causes any mutilation or deformity in him by striking him:

as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him: not that a like damage or hurt should be done to him, but that he should make satisfaction for it in a pecuniary way; pay for the cure of him, and for loss of time, and in consideration of the pain he has endured, and the shame or disgrace brought on him by the deformity or mutilation, or for whatever loss he may sustain thereby; See Gill on Exo 21:18 and See Gill on Exo 21:19.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

18. Beast for beast — Rather, life for life. This is even-handed justice.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 18-21. A summary of the law respecting minor injuries is added to that respecting murder. He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death, but he that killeth a beast shall make it good; and this lex talionis shall apply to all damage done to another, breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. (see Mat_5:38)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ramban (Nachmanides)

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban / Nachmanides)

AND HE THAT SMITETH A BEAST MORTALLY SHALL PAY FOR IT; ‘NEFESH’ (LIFE) FOR ‘NEFESH’ (LIFE). This does not mean a real animal, that he must buy him an animal similar to his one [that was killed], but rather it means that he is to give him monetary compensation equal to the damage he caused him. Similarly, breach for breach, eye for eye [also means monetary compensation], according to the opinion of our Rabbis.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Leviticus, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 7 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâlam (“to be at peace”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word shâlam carries the sense “to be at peace.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Leviticus 24:21, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “soul” (3× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וּמַכֵּ֥ה» is a Hiphil Participle Active verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“soul” occurs 3× in this single verse.
5 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.