The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Atonement for an Unsolved Murder
Deuteronomy 21:1–9 — Atonement for an Unsolved Murder. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- yim·mā·ṣê ḥā·lāl nō·p̄êl baś·śā·ḏeh bā·’ă·ḏā·māh ’ă·šer Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā nō·ṯên lə·ḵā lə·riš·tāh lō nō·w·ḏa‘ mî hik·kā·hū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“When there-is-found one-slain, fallen in-the-field, on-the-ground that YHWH your-God is-giving to-you to-possess-it — and it-is-not known who struck-him,”
Where the English smooths the original
This law declares how horrible murder is, seeing that because of one man a whole country will be punished, unless remedy is found.
If any one was found lying in a field in the land of Israel (נפל fallen, then lying, Judges 3:25 ; Judges 4:22 ), having been put to death without its being known who had killed him
It is remarkable that in our own time the most effectual remedy against outrages of which the perpetrators cannot be discovered is a fine upon the district in which they occur.
it being common for duels to be fought, and murders committed in a field; the first murder in the world was committed in such a place, Genesis 4:8
the ideas of sanctity which the Mosaic law sought to associate with human blood, the horror which murder inspired, as well as the fears that were felt lest God should avenge it on the country at large, and the pollution which the land was supposed to contract from the effusion of innocent, unexpiated bloodJFB’s entry is a unit-wide block printed under 21:1; this excerpt is its opening summary of why an unsolved killing defiled the whole land.
2your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
zə·qê·ne·ḵā wə·šō·p̄ə·ṭe·ḵā wə·yā·ṣə·’ū ū·mā·ḏə·ḏū he·ḥā·lāl ’el- sə·ḇî·ḇōṯ he·‘ā·rîm ’ă·šer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Then-shall-come-out your-elders and-your-judges, and-they-shall-measure to the-cities that-are round-about the-slain-one.”
Where the English smooths the original
The elders represented the citizens at large, the judges the magistracy: priests Deuteronomy 21:5 from the nearest priestly town, were likewise to be at hand. Thus, all classes would be represented at the purging away of that blood-guiltiness which until removed attached to the whole community.
those of thy elders who are judges; for the latter word explains and restrains the former, the judges or rulers of all the neighbouring cities, who were all concerned in this inquiry. They shall measure, unless it be evident and confessed which city is nearest, for then measuring was superfluous.
3Then the elders of the city nearest the victim shall take a heifer that has never been yoked or used for work,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hā·yāh ziq·nê hā·‘îr ha·hi·w hā·‘îr haq·qə·rō·ḇāh ’el- he·ḥā·lāl wə·lā·qə·ḥū ‘eḡ·laṯ bā·qār ’ă·šer lō- bə·‘ōl ‘ub·baḏ bāh ’ă·šer lō- mā·šə·ḵāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-it-shall-be, the-city the-nearest to the-slain-one — the-elders of-that-city shall-take a-heifer of-the-herd, that has-not been-worked-with, that has-not pulled in-the-yoke;”
Where the English smooths the original
A fit vicegerent and representative of the murderer, in whose stead it was killed, who by this act hath shown himself to be a son of Belial, who would not bear the yoke of God’s law. A type also of Christ, who was obliged to no work, and under no yoke, but what he had voluntarily taken upon himself.
The heifer represented the murderer, so far at least as to die in his stead, since he himself could not be found. As hearing his guilt the heifer must therefore be one which was of full growth and strength, and had not yet been ceremonially profaned by human use.Barnes guards the figure: the heifer ‘was not strictly a sacrifice or sin-offering… The transaction was rather figurative.’
Heifers were used for work, Jdg 14:18 , Hosea 10:11 , Jeremiah 50:11 , but this one, destined for a sacred use, must not have been so profaned: cp. Deuteronomy 15:19 , of firstlings, Numbers 19:2 , of the red heifer.
4bring the heifer to a valley with running water that has not been plowed or sown, and break its neck there by the stream.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hō·w·ri·ḏū ziq·nê ha·hi·w ’eṯ- hā·‘îr hā·‘eḡ·lāh ’el- na·ḥal ’ê·ṯān ’ă·šer lō- yê·‘ā·ḇêḏ bōw wə·lō yiz·zā·rê·a‘ hā·‘eḡ·lāh wə·‘ā·rə·p̄ū- šām ’eṯ- ban·nā·ḥal
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-they-shall-bring-down the-elders of-that-city the-heifer to a-wadi ever-flowing, that has-not been-worked and-has-not been-sown, and-they-shall-break-the-neck-of there the-heifer in-the-wadi.”
Where the English smooths the original
The Hebrew word נחל , nachal, here used, signifies either a valley or a torrent; and most probably is here meant of a valley with a brook running through it.
As this was not an act of sacrifice, for which the shedding of blood would have been required, but simply a symbolical representation of the infliction of death on the undiscovered murderer, the animal was to be killed by breaking its neck (cf. Exodus 13:13 ).
This regulation as to the locality in which the act of expiation was to be performed was probably founded upon the idea, that the water of the brook-valley would suck in the blood and clean it away, and that the blood sucked in by the earth would not be brought to light again by the ploughing and working of the soil.
5And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name and to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hă·nîm bə·nê lê·wî wə·nig·gə·šū kî ḇām Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā bā·ḥar lə·šā·rə·ṯōw ū·lə·ḇā·rêḵ Yah·weh bə·šêm wə·‘al- pî·hem yih·yeh kāl- rîḇ wə·ḵāl nā·ḡa‘
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-the-priests, sons-of Levi, shall-draw-near — for them YHWH your-God has-chosen to-minister-to-Him and-to-bless in-the-name-of YHWH — and by-their-mouth shall-be every-dispute and-every-stroke.”
Where the English smooths the original
The presence of the priests at this ceremony was due to their position as the servants of Jehovah the King of Israel, on whom it devolved to see that all was done in any matter as his Law prescribed.
some priests from the nearest Levitical town were to be present at it, not to conduct the affair, but as those whom Jehovah had chosen to serve Him and to bless in His name
The appearance of the priests is remarkable, for they have nothing else to do in the ceremony.Cambridge suspects an editorial insertion under later priestly conceptions; weigh this critical conjecture against the text, which simply gives the priests their standing role of blessing and ruling.
6Then all the elders of the city nearest the victim shall wash their hands by the stream over the heifer whose neck has been broken,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵōl ziq·nê hā·‘îr ha·hi·w haq·qə·rō·ḇîm ’el- he·ḥā·lāl yir·ḥă·ṣū ’eṯ- yə·ḏê·hem ḇan·nā·ḥal ‘al- hā·‘eḡ·lāh hā·‘ă·rū·p̄āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-all the-elders of-that-city, the-nearest to the-slain-one, shall-wash their-hands over the-heifer whose-neck-was-broken in-the-wadi.”
Where the English smooths the original
shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: in token of their innocence, and this they did not only for themselves, but for the whole city, being the representatives of it; see Psalm 26:6 .
The elders, by the significant act of washing their hands, indicated that they threw off from them, utterly repudiated, the charge of blood-guiltiness on the part of the town which they represented (cf. Psalm 26:6 ; Psalm 73:13 ; Matthew 27:24 ).
7and they shall declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘ā·nū wə·’ā·mə·rū yā·ḏê·nū lō šå̄·p̄ə·ḵå̄h ’eṯ- haz·zeh had·dām lō wə·‘ê·nê·nū rā·’ū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-they-shall-testify and-say: ‘Our-hands have-not shed this blood, and-our-eyes have-not seen.’”
Where the English smooths the original
They shall answer — To the priests who shall examine them. This blood — This about which the present inquiry is made; or this which is here present: for it is thought the corpse of the slain man was brought into the same place where the heifer was slain.
answer ] testify , as in Deuteronomy 5:20 (9th Comm.), and Deuteronomy 19:16 .
for had they been aware of him, or had any suspicion of him or his design, they would have detained him, or at least would not have suffered him to have departed alone
8Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kap·pêr Yah·weh lə·‘am·mə·ḵā yiś·rā·’êl ’ă·šer- pā·ḏî·ṯā wə·’al- tit·tên nā·qî dām bə·qe·reḇ ‘am·mə·ḵā yiś·rā·’êl lā·hem had·dām wə·nik·kap·pêr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Cover for-Your-people Israel, whom You-have-redeemed, O-YHWH, and-do-not put innocent blood in-the-midst-of Your-people Israel — and the-blood shall-be-covered for-them.”
Where the English smooths the original
In the sense of the publican’s prayer in St. Luke 18 “be propitiated,” literally, cover. The mercy seat is the “covering” of the Law, which protects Israel from it. The sacrifices are a “covering” for the sinner from a punishment of sin.Drawn from Ellicott’s unit-note on vv. 1–9 (printed under 21:1), where he treats the prayer of v. 8.
though there was no mortal guilt in this people, yet there was a ceremonial uncleanness in the land, which was to be expiated and forgiven.
This was the prayer, which the priests made in the audience of the people.
The priests were to pray to God for the country and nation, that God would be merciful. We must empty that measure by our prayers, which others are filling by their sins.Henry’s entry is a single unit-wide block printed under 21:1; this excerpt belongs to the priests’ prayer of v. 8.
9So you shall purge from among you the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’at·tāh tə·ḇa·‘êr miq·qir·be·ḵā han·nā·qî had·dām kî- ṯa·‘ă·śeh hay·yā·šār bə·‘ê·nê Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-you, you-shall-burn-away the innocent blood from-your-midst, when you-do the-right in-the-eyes-of YHWH.”
Where the English smooths the original
Till this was done, the guilt was to be looked upon as national; but upon this being solemnly performed, the government was deemed to have done its duty, and the nation cleared of all guilt in this matter. No doubt the chief end of the appointment of this ceremony was to beget and preserve in the minds of men an abhorrence of murder, and a care to prevent or detect it.
Heb. and thou, thou shalt put away , an emphatic variation of the formula with which D usually closes similar laws
Expiation was made by the killing of the transgressor when he could be found ( Deuteronomy 19:13 ; Numbers 35:33 ); when he was not known, by the process here described. Of course, if afterwards he were apprehended, he would suffer the penalty he had incurredPulpit quotes Knobel; the same Talmudic ruling (Sotah 9:7) is followed by Keil.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The law begins where dread begins: a man found — חָלָל (ḥālāl), pierced through — נֹפֵל, fallen where he was struck, on the red ‘ăḏāmāh of the land YHWH gave. And the one fact that drives everything: לֹא נוֹדַע מִי הִכָּהוּ, “it is not known who struck him.” Keil & Delitzsch read the opening exactly so — a man “put to death without its being known who had killed him.” The Geneva Bible states the stakes in one line: “This law declares how horrible murder is, seeing that because of one man a whole country will be punished, unless remedy is found.” Gill notes the grim pedigree of the scene — “the first murder in the world was committed in such a place, Genesis 4:8” — and Ellicott, with a lawyer’s eye, sees a principle that outlived Sinai: “the most effectual remedy against outrages of which the perpetrators cannot be discovered is a fine upon the district in which they occur.” So the elders and judges go out and measure — וּמָדְדוּ, the stretched cord — until the nearest city is found and the guilt has somewhere to land.
The nearest city takes עֶגְלַת בָּקָר, a heifer “that has not been worked with, that has not pulled in the yoke.” Barnes states the figure plainly: “The heifer represented the murderer, so far at least as to die in his stead, since he himself could not be found.” Poole and Benson press it further — the unyoked beast is “a fit representation of the murderer… who would not bear the yoke of God’s law.” She is brought down to a נַחַל אֵיתָן, a perennial wadi — Benson: “a valley with a brook running through it” — uncultivated, “neither eared nor sown,” and there they וְעָרְפוּ, break her neck. That verb (‘āraf) is the hinge of the whole rite, and the apparatus is honest about its limits: the Pulpit Commentary insists this was “not an act of sacrifice… but simply a symbolical representation of the infliction of death on the undiscovered murderer.” Keil supplies the reason for the running water: it “would suck in the blood and clean it away.” Barnes himself, who allows the Christ-figure that later commentators find, is careful to add that the heifer “was not strictly a sacrifice or sin-offering.”
The priests וְנִגְּשׁוּ, draw near — chosen, says the text, “to minister to Him and to bless in the name of YHWH.” Their role is contested: Cambridge calls their appearance “remarkable, for they have nothing else to do in the ceremony,” while the Pulpit Commentary answers that their very presence “gave it sanction as valid.” Then the elders יִרְחֲצוּ, wash their hands over the slain heifer and swear: “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen.” Gill: they wash “not only for themselves, but for the whole city, being the representatives of it.” And the prayer rises — by the priests’ mouths, per Geneva and the Targums — כַּפֵּר, “cover for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed.” Ellicott unfolds the verb: “literally, cover. The mercy seat is the ‘covering’ of the Law, which protects Israel from it.” Poole names the precise theology: “though there was no mortal guilt in this people, yet there was a ceremonial uncleanness in the land, which was to be expiated and forgiven.”
The unit ends on the emphatic וְאַתָּה, “and you, you yourself” — Cambridge hears Moses “resuming his own words” — תְּבַעֵר, you shall burn away the innocent blood from your midst, the fierce Deuteronomic refrain (13:5; 19:13). Benson catches the civic logic: “till this was done, the guilt was to be looked upon as national… the chief end of the appointment of this ceremony was to beget and preserve in the minds of men an abhorrence of murder.” The land is cleansed not by the beast alone but by a people that does “the right in the eyes of the LORD.” The Pulpit Commentary closes the loop with the Talmud: when the killer was later found, “he would suffer the penalty he had incurred” — the heifer never let a real murderer go free.
Read under Sola Scriptura — Scripture as the final court over our reading — four things in this strange rite ask to be tested, not trusted. First, the law refuses to let blood be cheap or anonymous. An unsolved killing is not filed away; the whole community must act, measure, descend, swear, pray. The text values one slain man enough to convulse a district. Second, substitution is taught before it is explained. An unyoked heifer dies in the stead of a killer who cannot be found, bearing in her broken neck the death that should have fallen on him — yet the commentators are nearly unanimous (Barnes, the Pulpit Commentary, Keil) that this is not a sacrifice: no altar, no sprinkled blood. So the passage holds a substitution that points beyond itself, a covering it cannot itself complete. Third, innocence must be sworn and blood must be covered. Washed hands (rāḥaṣ) and the cry כַּפֵּר (kāp̄ar) sit side by side — human protestation of innocence and divine covering of guilt, which is exactly the seam the New Testament reopens at the cross, where one Man’s hands are washed of innocent blood (Matthew 27:24) and Another’s blood truly covers. Fourth, the rite ends in obedience, not magic. The blood is purged “when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD” — the cleansing is moral before it is ceremonial. These are offered as a reading to weigh against the verses, and to discard wherever the Word does not bear them.
An unyoked heifer dies for a murderer no one can name — a covering that points past itself to the One who truly covers blood.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The neck-breaking of the heifer uses עָרַף (‘āraf), a verb that occurs only six times in the whole Hebrew Bible — and three of those occurrences cluster in one ruling: the firstling of an unredeemed ass (and, by extension, any creature) is to have its neck broken rather than be sacrificed. The Pulpit Commentary makes the link by name — “the animal was to be killed by breaking its neck (cf. Exodus 13:13).” This is the apparatus’s strongest verbal tie in the unit: a rare lexeme, not a common one, shared across the same legal logic of a substitute that is killed but not offered.
Deuteronomy 21:4 · Exodus 13:13 · Exodus 34:20
basis: shared rare lexeme H6202 ʻâraph (‘to break the neck,’ only 6× in the OT) — verifier-confirmed for Deut 21:4 ↔ Exodus 13:13 and ↔ Exodus 34:20; both legislate breaking the neck of an unredeemed/substitute animal
The same rare verb returns in the prophets with a terrible reversal. In Hosea 10:2 the LORD says of a divided-hearted Israel that He “will break down” (עָרַף, ‘āraf) their altars — the very verb that breaks the heifer’s neck here, now turned against Israel’s own cult. And Hosea pictures the nation itself as a עֶגְלָה (‘eḡlāh), a trained heifer (Hosea 10:11) — the very animal of this rite, but one accustomed to the yoke. What Deuteronomy 21 does to an innocent, unyoked substitute, Hosea threatens to do to a guilty, yoke-broken people: the figure of the heifer becomes a warning that the yoke will come.
Deuteronomy 21:3 · Deuteronomy 21:4 · Hosea 10:2 · Hosea 10:11
basis: the verbal-grade tie is the RARE lexeme H6202 ʻâraph (only 6× in the OT), verifier-confirmed for Deut 21:4 ↔ Hosea 10:2 — though the sense shifts from ‘break the neck’ (of an animal) to ‘break down’ (altars), it is the same uncommon root. The second link, H5697 ʻeglâh (‘heifer,’ 13×) Deut 21:3 ↔ Hosea 10:11, is a COMMON lexeme and is therefore only structural/thematic — a re-use of the same image, not a quotation; it does not carry the ‘verbal’ grade
The elders’ prayer — כַּפֵּר (kāp̄ar, ‘cover/atone’) for דָּם (dām, ‘blood’) — places this rite inside the wider biblical theology of blood-guilt and covering. Numbers 35:33 states the principle the rite answers: “blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Leviticus 17:11 gives the ground of all covering: “it is the blood that makes atonement.” The shared roots are real and confirmed; this is a structural-thematic link, not a quotation — Deuteronomy 21 is the case where the killer’s own blood is unavailable, so the land waits for a covering it cannot fully supply.
Deuteronomy 21:8 · Numbers 35:33 · Leviticus 17:11
basis: shared lexemes H3722 kâphar (94×) + H1818 dâm (295×) — verifier-confirmed for Deut 21:8 ↔ Numbers 35:33 and ↔ Leviticus 17:11; common, not rare, so a thematic motif of blood-atonement rather than a quotation
The elders יִרְחֲצוּ (rāḥaṣ) their hands over the heifer to disown the blood. David turns the same gesture into worship — “I will wash my hands in innocence” (Psalm 26:6) — a verifier-confirmed Hebrew link on the shared root. The gesture reappears in the Gospels when Pilate “washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood’” (Matthew 27:24). That last link cannot be tiered ‘verbal’: it crosses Testaments, Hebrew to Greek, so it shares no Strong’s number — and its irony is sharp, since Pilate borrows Israel’s rite of innocence at the very moment innocent blood is being shed. The motif is real; the New Testament tie is figural, and so it is flagged.
Deuteronomy 21:6 · Psalm 26:6 · Psalm 73:13 · Matthew 27:24
basis: Deut 21:6 ↔ Psalm 26:6 is verifier-confirmed on H7364 râchats (‘to wash,’ 71×, structural). The Matthew 27:24 tie is cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew) with NO shared Strong’s lexeme — verifier returns ‘no shared original-language lexeme’; the hand-washing parallel is thematic/figural and must be argued, not asserted, so the whole thread is left flagged
A עֶגְלָה (‘eḡlāh) of the herd, deliberately set apart from common work, recurs at the great covenant moments: God cuts the covenant with Abram over a three-year-old heifer (Genesis 15:9), and Samuel carries a heifer to Bethlehem as the cover for anointing David (1 Samuel 16:2). Cambridge gathers the same set, noting that a beast “destined for a sacred use, must not have been so profaned.” The thread is the shared image of the set-apart heifer, not a quotation.
Deuteronomy 21:3 · Genesis 15:9 · 1 Samuel 16:2
basis: shared lexeme H5697 ʻeglâh (‘heifer,’ 13×) + H1241 bâqâr (‘herd,’ 172×) — verifier-confirmed for Deut 21:3 ↔ Genesis 15:9 and ↔ 1 Samuel 16:2; a recurring motif of the set-apart heifer, not a verbal citation
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The earliest Christian readers saw the heifer as a shadow of Christ. Poole writes it directly: the unyoked beast is “a type also of Christ, who was obliged to no work, and under no yoke, but what he had voluntarily taken upon himself.” Gill sees the same — the heifer free of the yoke pictures one who “expiated the sins of such who were sons of Belial.” But the apparatus must hold the tension the text itself sets: Barnes and the Pulpit Commentary insist the heifer “was not strictly a sacrifice,” its neck broken, no blood sprinkled. So the figure is real but incomplete — a substitute that dies in the murderer’s stead for sin no eye saw, yet cannot itself cover it. It points to a true substitute whose blood is shed and does atone (Hebrews 9:22; 1 Peter 1:19). The type teaches the grammar of substitution; the antitype supplies what the heifer lacked.
Deuteronomy 21:3 · Deuteronomy 21:4 · Hebrews 9:22 · 1 Peter 1:19
The whole rite turns on דָּם נָקִי, innocent blood, and the plea כַּפֵּר, cover it. Ellicott already heard the gospel in the verb — “in the sense of the publican’s prayer… ‘be propitiated,’ literally, cover” — and tied the covering to the mercy-seat that shields Israel from the broken Law. The New Testament names what finally covers innocent blood: not a heifer’s broken neck but the blood of Jesus, the truly innocent One, by which God “set forth a propitiation” (Romans 3:25) and which “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24) — that other blood, shed in a field, that this very law was framed to answer. Held honestly: this is a reading toward Christ along the line of kāp̄ar and innocent blood, offered to be tested against the texts, not a claim that Deuteronomy 21 quotes the cross.
Deuteronomy 21:7 · Deuteronomy 21:8 · Romans 3:25 · Hebrews 12:24
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (CC0). The Hebrew is the Masoretic tradition; transliterations, parsings, the literal renderings, and the ‘where the English smooths the Hebrew’ notes are this tool’s own work (⚙) — check them against BDB/HALOT and a standard grammar.
On the voices: two raw entries in the source set are mis-filed and were not used as if they belonged to their verse. The Barnes note attached to 21:1 actually concerns fruit-trees in warfare (a later passage) and is an indexing error; the Barnes note repeated across vv. 4–9 is his single comment on ‘eared’ and ‘break its neck,’ properly belonging to vv. 3–4, and is used only where its content fits (v. 3). Matthew Henry’s and JFB’s entries are unit-wide blocks repeated under every verse; they are drawn from once. Ellicott’s and the bulk of the substantive commentary for vv. 5–8 are printed by BibleHub under the 21:1 unit-note, which is why an Ellicott excerpt on v. 8 carries the 21-1 source URL — noted in its editorial_note.
On the rite itself: the commentators genuinely disagree, and the synthesis preserves the disagreement rather than resolving it — whether the heifer ‘represents the murderer or the murder’ (Cambridge), whether the killing was sacrifice or sympathetic magic later moralized (Cambridge’s open question), and whether the priests are original to the law or an editorial insertion (Cambridge vs. Pulpit). These are left visible. On the threads: the one rare-lexeme tie (‘āraf, 6×) is the only ‘verbal’-grade link and is verifier-confirmed; everything resting on common words (kāp̄ar, dām, rāḥaṣ, ‘eḡlāh) is tiered thematic/structural; the Matthew 27:24 hand-washing tie is cross-Testament with no shared Strong’s number and is deliberately left flagged. ⚙ = machine synthesis, fallible, to be weighed against Scripture. ‘Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.’ (Acts 17:11)
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)