A RANSOM — the price paid to buy a life back, from the same three letters as kipper, to make atonement. ⭐ Numbers 35:31-32 refuses it twice in two verses, and the second refusal is the surprising one: no ransom for a murderer (expected — a rich man may not buy off a capital charge), and no ransom for the INNOCENT killer either, to let him leave his city of refuge early. Whatever that confinement is, it is not a fine. ⚠ And the atonement-root stands in all three consecutive verses: kofer at v31, kofer at v32, and lo yekhuppar, ‘it shall not be atoned’, at v33 — twice a price refused, and then the only currency the chapter accepts. English cannot hold the pair, since ‘ransom’ and ‘atonement’ share nothing. ⚠ Exodus 21:30 is the contrasting case, where a kofer IS permitted — for an ox that gores. The Douay-Rheims glosses it plainly at Numbers 35:31 as ‘money’, and the KJV as ‘satisfaction’. ⚠ Spelled identically to kopher, HENNA, and to the pitch that coated Noah’s ark; separate senses, one set of letters. → first discussed at Num 35:31