This verse gives an exception to verse 12. But if he did not lie in wait for him has been changed in New Revised Standard Version to “If it was not premeditated.” Good News Translation interprets this to mean “if … he did not mean to kill him,” and New International Version has “if he does not do it intentionally.” But God let him fall into his hand is literally “and God let happen to his hand,” but New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh puts it more clearly: “But if … it came about as an act of God” (similarly also New American Bible and Revised English Bible). New International Version has “but God lets it happen,” and Contemporary English Version has “and I, the LORD, let it happen anyway.”

Then I will appoint for you is a change from third person to first and second person singular, for here God is speaking either to Moses or to Israel as an individual. This means that God will be the one to show where that special place will be. The word for appoint is variously translated as “choose” (Good News Translation), “establish” (Durham), “assign” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “set apart” (New American Bible), “provide” (Translator’s Old Testament), or “designate” (New International Version).

A place to which he may flee is literally “a place where he will escape there.” This place is not identified, but the following verse suggests that it was wherever Yahweh’s altar would be. (For an example of this provision, see 1Kgs 1.50-53.) However, “cities of refuge” were later set up by Moses where a person could flee until it could be determined whether his act of violence was intentional or not. (See Deut 4.41-43.) A possible alternative model is “he may run for safety to a place that I have set aside for you.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .