H7523 — רָצַח (râtsach)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H7523
Original: רָצַח
Transliteration: râtsach
Pronunciation: raw-tsakh
Part of Speech: Verb (primitive root)
Occurrences: 40 unique verses / 51 tokens in OT
Books: 13
First Occurrence: Exo 20:13 — "Thou shalt not kill."
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

A primitive root; properly, to dash in pieces, i.e. kill (a human being), especially to murder:—put to death, kill, (man-) slay(-er), murder(-er).

Verb Stem Distribution¶

Tallied from hebrew_parser.py across 47 verbal occurrences (2 further tokens are the related noun רֶצַח H7524 and are excluded).

Stem	Count	Typical Function
Qal	40	Act of killing / active participle "slayer, murderer"
Piel	5	Intensive — premeditated murder, slaughter (2Ki 6:32; Isa 1:21; Hos 6:9; Psa 62:3; Psa 94:6)
Niphal	2	Passive — be slain / be murdered (Jdg 20:4; Pro 22:13)

Morphological note: The Qal active participle רֹצֵחַ ("slayer / one who kills") is the dominant form — ~32 of the 40 Qal tokens — and gives rise to the frequent legal substantive "the slayer" in the cities-of-refuge material. The Piel stem clusters in prophetic and poetic contexts and carries the heightened sense of deliberate, iterative killing.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation Group	Verses	%
slayer / the slayer / for the slayer / of the slayer / manslayer	19	47.5%
murderer / the murderer / a murderer / of a murderer / murderers	14	35.0%
kill / killing / killed / killeth / should kill	5	12.5%
murder / and (murder)	4	10.0%
slay / slain / put to death	4	10.0%

(Percentages reflect verses where a translation appears; a verse may use more than one form.)

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Numbers	14	1.1
Joshua	8	1.2
Deuteronomy	6	0.6
Hosea	2	1.0
Psalms	2	0.1
Judges	1	0.2
Exodus	1	0.1
1 Kings	1	0.1
2 Kings	1	0.1
Job	1	0.1
Jeremiah	1	0.1
Proverbs	1	0.1
Isaiah	1	0.1

Pattern: Extremely concentrated in Torah and Joshua (29 of 40 verses = 72.5%), nearly all in the cities-of-refuge legal corpus (Num 35; Deut 4, 19; Josh 20–21). Prophetic usage (Hos, Jer, Isa) and wisdom/poetic usage (Job, Ps, Pro) account for the remainder and shift the register from legal statute to moral indictment. Absent from the Pentateuch outside Exo 20:13, Num, and Deut.

Semantic Categories¶

1. The Sixth Commandment — Absolute Prohibition¶

Exo 20:13 — "Thou shalt not kill."
Deut 5:17 — "Thou shalt not kill."
Jer 7:9 — "Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery..." (rebuke for breaking the Decalogue)
Hos 4:2 — "By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing..." (covenant indictment)

2. The "Slayer" — Accidental / Unintentional Homicide¶

Overwhelmingly the participle רֹצֵחַ designates a person who killed without malice and flees to a city of refuge. - Num 35:11 — "that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares" - Deut 4:42 — "the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares" - Deut 19:4 — "Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly, whom he hated not in times past" - Josh 20:3 — "the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly"

3. The Murderer — Intentional, Premeditated Killing¶

Same verb, but distinguished by context, motive (enmity, lying in wait), and instrument. - Num 35:16 — "he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death" - Num 35:19 — "The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer" - Num 35:31 — "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer" - 1 Kgs 21:19 — "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" (Elijah to Ahab over Naboth)

4. Judicial Execution of the Murderer¶

The same root is used for the lawful putting-to-death of the convicted murderer — showing the word itself is morally neutral and determined by context. - Num 35:27 — "and slay the slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood" - Num 35:30 — "the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses"

5. Prophetic Indictment of Violent Society¶

The Piel stem intensifies the sense to iterative, calculated killing. - Isa 1:21 — "it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers" - Hos 6:9 — "the company of priests murder in the way by consent" - Psa 94:6 — "They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless" - Psa 62:3 — "ye shall be slain all of you" (threat against adversaries)

6. Being Slain / Passive Victimhood¶

Niphal stem — the one killed rather than the killer. - Jdg 20:4 — "the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain" - Pro 22:13 — "The slothful man saith... I shall be slain in the streets"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
עִיר (ʻîyr, "city")	H5892	14x (35%)	"city of refuge for the slayer"
מִקְלָט (miqlâṭ, "refuge")	H4733	13x (32%)	Core cities-of-refuge terminology
נָכָה (nâkâh, "smite")	H5221	10x (25%)	"smite him that he die" — the act producing the death
דָּם (dâm, "blood")	H1818	9x (22%)	"avenger of blood / blood-guilt"
נוּס (nûwç, "flee")	H5127	9x (22%)	"the slayer may flee thither"
גָּאַל (gâʼal, "redeem / avenger")	H1350	8x (20%)	"the avenger of blood" (go'el ha-dam) pursues the slayer
מוּת (mûwth, "die / put to death")	H4191	8x (20%)	"die / surely be put to death" — legal consequence
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, "person / life")	H5315	6x (15%)	"killeth any person" — the life taken
כֹּהֵן (kôhên, "priest")	H3548	5x (12%)	"death of the high priest" marks end of refuge-period
יָד (yâd, "hand")	H3027	5x (12%)	"out of the hand of the avenger" / instrument
מָוֶת (mâveth, "death")	H4194	5x (12%)	Judicial death-penalty formulae
מִגְרָשׁ (migrâsh, "suburb")	H4054	5x (12%)	Levitical cities with suburbs designated for refuge

Structural pattern: the cities-of-refuge legal corpus supplies ~60% of the lexical collocations — refuge-city-flee-avenger-blood-smite-die forms a tight legal vocabulary.

Word Family / Cognates¶

H7524 רֶצַח (retsach) — cognate noun from this root: "slaughter, crushing, murder" (Psa 42:10; Eze 21:22). Same root, nominalized.

Synonyms¶

No synonym entries were returned by search_relationships.py for H7523.

Antonyms¶

No antonym entries were returned by search_relationships.py for H7523.

Easily Confused Words (KJV / LXX Overlap)¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
הָרַג (hârag)	H2026	"murder / slay / kill"	Broadest verb for killing — covers warfare, judicial execution, massacre, sacrifice; not morally loaded. ratsach is narrower, focused on illicit homicide of a fellow human. See H2026-harag.md.
מוּת (mûwth, Hiphil)	H4191	"put to death / kill"	Generic "to die" (Qal) / "cause to die" (Hiphil); used for all deaths including natural. ratsach specifies violent killing of a person.
נָכָה (nâkâh)	H5221	"slay / smite"	"Strike / smite" — may or may not result in death; focus on the blow. ratsach focuses on the killing itself.
חָלָל (châlâl)	H2491	"slain"	Noun: the one slain, the pierced/wounded corpse, often battlefield dead. ratsach is the verbal act.
שָׁחַט (shâchaṭ)	H7819	"slay"	Slaughter of animals for sacrifice or food; occasionally human. Not used in the Decalogue prohibition.

LXX-Bridged Confusion¶

Through the LXX, ratsach is absorbed into a wider Greek vocabulary of killing — see "LXX Mapping" below. In the NT, the Decalogue citation (Matt 5:21; Rom 13:9; Jas 2:11) uses φονεύω (G5407), preserving the narrow "murder" sense.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI	Notes
φονεύω (phoneúō)	G5407	25	8.62	Primary bridge — the dominant LXX rendering; carries ratsach's moral-legal sense of "murder"
καταφεύγω (katapheúgō)	G2703	3	6.84	"flee down to refuge" — from refuge-city contexts, not ratsach itself but verbal context
αἷμα (haîma)	G129	8	4.11	"blood" — co-occurring lexical field, not a translation equivalent
πόλις (pólis)	G4172	15	3.15	"city" (of refuge) — contextual overlap
ἀφορίζω (aphorízō)	G873	4	5.28	"set apart" — designating cities of refuge
πατάσσω (patássō)	G3960	8	3.85	"strike" — LXX gloss in some smiting-contexts
θανατόω (thanatóō)	G2289	5	4.53	"put to death" — used for judicial execution of the murderer
ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnḗskō)	G599	8	3.53	"die" — consequential verb in context
θάνατος (thánatos)	G2288	6	3.97	"death" — death-penalty contexts

Primary lexical bridge: ratsach → phoneúō (G5407). Co-occurrence of 25 across 40 OT uses = ~62.5% direct equivalence, the strongest single bridge.

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[002001001019] Dead — search_relationships.py places râtsach in the death field, fitting both the act of murder and the resulting state produced by the root.