ואם אסון יהיה. למ"ד נתכוין להרוג את זה והרג את זה חייב ר"ל נפש תחת נפש ממש ולמ"ד פטור ממיתה וחייב ממון הוי נפש תחת נפש ממון פדיון נפשו ולתנא דבי חזקיהו דסבר פ"ק דבבא קמא דפטור אפילו מממון מתפרש קרא הכי ואם אסון יהיה ונתכוון לאשה עצמה. ונתת נפש תחת נפש. ותימה מה חידוש יש בזה דכיון דנתכוין לאשה דנהרג ולי נראה דסד"א דכיון דלא אתעבידא מחשבתו שהרי עיקר כוונתו היתה להרוג את חבירו לא ליחייב קמ"ל: אם אסון יהיה, “if an unexpected complication resulted, such as the premature stillborn death of the fetus, etc.” according to the scholar in the Talmud who holds that if a person intended to kill A and killed B instead by mistake, he is still considered guilty of murder, seeing that he had violated the commandment of “a life for a life,” as having to be understood literally, there is no problem here. According to the scholar who holds that these words here are not to be taken literally, but that what is meant is a financial penalty/compensation, to be paid by the perpetrator. The third opinion in the Talmud, Tanna de bey Chiskiyah, holds that the perpetrator does not even have to pay a financial penalty to the heirs of the victim. This opinion is expressed in the tractate Baba Kamma, folio 35, and is based on the following interpretation of our verse: The words: אם אסון יהיה, “if a mishap will occur,” are referring to the woman pregnant with child, not to her fetus; then the rule נפש תחת נפש, “a life for a life is applied,” seeing she, a living human being had been killed. The author adds that it appears to him that what went wrong here was that the killer had intended to kill the man he was fighting with, but had erroneously killed this woman. If we had not had this verse we might have thought that no death penalty would apply seeing that what he had intended to do had not been carried out; the Torah therefore repeats this expression “a life for a life,” to remind us that regardless of who had been killed by him he deserves death for having intended to kill a human being, something he had intended to do, and something which carries the death penalty.