Tafsiran Keluaran 21:13: Rashi, Chizkuni, Sforno & Or HaChaim

ואשר לא צדה AND IF A MAN LIE NOT IN WAIT — i. e. if he did not lie in ambush for him (the person whom he killed), nor did he premeditate the blow (Makkot 7b).

והאלוקים אנה לידו, “and it was a result of divine will;” in other words, the person becomes guilty of death at the hands of heaven. Rashi on this verse understands it as referring to an inadvertent killing, which was the result of inadequate precautions being taken by the person who caused it. He interprets it as a demonstration of the verse: מרשעים יצא רשע, “wicked people will cause wicked acts.” What is meant is that if someone has committed a serious sin unobserved and intentionally, so that he could not be brought to trial, providence sees to it that he will have to atone for this by committing unintentional death of an apparently innocent person. The example quoted is that the “sinner” was ascending a ladder, a rung of which broke and caused him to hit someone standing nearby in his fall. On our verse, Rashi comments: “this refers to unintentional killing.” He interprets the verse from Samuel I 24,13, by providing an illustration. The person sitting under the ladder had once killed intentionally, but no witnesses were present who could testify against him in a Court that would condemn him to death. On the other hand, the person falling from the ladder had once killed unintentionally when there were no witnesses who would have forced him to take refuge in the city set aside for such situation. Now, through divine intervention, both had received their penalties, each appropriate to his sin. Alternately, the scenario should be as follows: the party who had previously committed deliberate murder, fell onto someone holding a knife in his hand at the time. If we would not explain the verse in this manner, the person who had been guilty of execution by the sword would not have died by the proper type of execution, i.e. the sword. The example quoted also teaches that a person cannot become guilty having to go to the city of refuge twice. The reason is that once you have killed someone if in the process you have killed someone also unintentionally, you are penalised only for the more serious crime.

והאלוקים אנה לידו, this was not a death caused intentionally by the killer, but we know that there operates a principle in this world known as מגלגלין חובה על ידי חייב, “G’d arranges matters so that the guilty party being punished will be punished by someone himself guilty of something else.” This is what Solomon referred to in Proverbs 16,4 וגם רשע ליום רעה, “even the wicked for the day of evil.” [to the question if everything has a purpose in this world, what is the function of the wicked? Solomon answers that the wicked is used by G’d to administer punishment to those who deserve it. Ed.]

צדה is a term denoting “lying in wait”; similarly it says, (I Samuel 24:12) “yet thou liest in wait (צדה) for my soul to take it”. It is, however, not correct to say that צדה is of the same derivation as, (Genesis 27:34) הצד ציד “he that hath hunted (הצד) venison”, for a ה has no place in the verbal forms of the term denoting “hunting beasts”. Then again, the noun form of the latter is צַיִד and that of the former צְדִיָה, whilst the participle of the verb “lying in wait” is צוֹדֶה and that of the other is צָד. I therefore say that its meaning is as the Targum gives it: “and if he did not lie in ambush for him”. Menachem ben Seruk placed it in the same section as הצד ציד (i. e. he held that the root is צד and that it has the meaning of “hunting”), but I do not agree with him. If it is to be placed in one of the sections of צד we had better place it in the same section as, (Isaiah 66:12) על צד תנשאו “ye shall be borne upon her side (צד)” and (I Samuel 20:20) “and I will shoot [three arrows] on the side thereof (צדה)”, and (Daniel 7:25) “and he shall speak towards the side of (against) the Most High”. Thus, here, the words אשד לא צדה could be taken to mean, “he did not turn aside (צִדֵּד)” to seek some side (occasion) for killing him. But there are objections even to this explanation. At any rate, even if it be connected with צד in this sense, it would still have the meaning “lying in wait”.