This entry from The New American Bible deals with personal injury as the headline in that Bible suggests: “Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death. He, however, who did not hunt a man down, but caused his death by an act of God, may flee to a place which I will set apart for this purpose. But when a man kills another after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my altar and put him to death. Whooever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.”
My response: Yahweh was for the death penalty for deliberate murderers or a man who strikes his parents. Note that Dennis Prager is for the death penalty, whereas I am not, except in extreme cases like a Hitler being convicted of mass crimes.
Yahweh demonstrated a sense of justice, mercy, reasonableness, and proportion in offering dispensation and sanction to the one that caused the death of another man by an act of God—an accident? Note that the accused or malefactor may seek refuge in the temple, but even then, amnesty may or may not be granted.
Here is this same passage in the Holy Bible (KJV): “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall surely be put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him unto his hand; then I shall appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.
But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou should take him from mine altar, that he may die. And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”
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