TO BEFALL, to happen, to be met with by chance. ⭐ Numbers 35:11 is where it does its strangest work: the verb that APPOINTS the cities of refuge is the causative of this root, ve-hiqritem — a form that stands in one verse of the whole Hebrew Bible. Israel is told, in effect, to make an accident happen on purpose, in advance, for people to whom an accident will happen. ⚠ The plain noun from the same root is miqreh, FATE or chance. Elsewhere the causative asks God for a fortunate meeting: at Genesis 24:12, already on these pages, Abraham’s servant prays haqreh na lefanai at the well, and at Genesis 27:20 Jacob lies with it — ‘because Jehovah your God caused it to happen before me’. ⚠ Two versions hear the encounter-sense at Numbers 35:11 and the rest do not: the NWT 1984 and its 2013 revision read ‘cities convenient for yourselves’ and the TNM 2019 «ciudades accesibles», while the KJV, ASV and Geneva print ‘appoint’, the NIV ‘select’, the Douay-Rheims ‘determine’ and both Reina-Valeras «os señalaréis». ⚠ A homonymous root, qarah II, means to lay beams (Psalm 104:3, Nehemiah 2:8) and is unrelated. → first discussed at Num 35:11