But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait,

But if by chance medley, and without hatred,

But if he have thrust at him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything unintentionally,

But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or hurled upon him any thing without lying in wait,

'And if, in an instant, without enmity, he hath thrust him through, or hath cast at him any instrument, without lying in wait;

But if a man has given a wound to another suddenly and not in hate, or without design has sent something against him,

But if by chance, and without hatred

Si autem casu absque inimicitiis impulerit eum, vel projecerit in eum quodvis instrumentum absque insidiis.

But if he thrust him suddenly, without enmity,.... Push him from a precipice, before he is aware, without any malicious design against his life, but merely through accident:
or have cast upon him anything; from the top of a house, or from a building he is pulling down, or pushes a bowing wall upon him, not knowing that he is passing by it:
and without lying of wait: or having contrived to do it, just as he goes along, or in any other similar way.

But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait, &c.--Under the excitement of a sudden provocation, or violent passion, an injury might be inflicted issuing in death; and for a person who had thus undesignedly committed slaughter, the Levitical cities offered the benefit of full protection. Once having reached the nearest, for one or other of them was within a day's journey of all parts of the land, he was secure. But he had to "abide in it." His confinement within its walls was a wise and salutary rule, designed to show the sanctity of human blood in God's sight, as well as to protect the manslayer himself, whose presence and intercourse in society might have provoked the passions of the deceased's relatives. But the period of his release from this confinement was not until the death of the high priest. That was a season of public affliction, when private sorrows were sunk or overlooked under a sense of the national calamity, and when the death of so eminent a servant of God naturally led all to serious consideration about their own mortality. The moment, however, that the refugee broke through the restraints of his confinement and ventured beyond the precincts of the asylum, he forfeited the privilege, and, if he was discovered by his pursuer, he might be slain with impunity.