1“And these are the judgments that you shall set before them:
21:1. these are the judgments that you shall set. These three chapters, Exodus 21–23, are a corpus of law known as the Covenant Code.
2“When you will buy a Hebrew slave, he shall work six years, and in the seventh he shall go out liberated for free.
21:2. Hebrew slave. In biblical narrative the term “Hebrew” is used to identify Israelites only when speaking among foreigners. It is not the standard term for the people, which is rather “Israelite” at first, and “Jew” later. Its use here in biblical law, where we would have expected “Israelite slave,” probably occurs because this had become a fixed phrase through assonance: the two words, “slave” (
, ‘ebed) and “Hebrew” (
, ‘ibrî), begin with the same two letters.
3If he will come by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is a woman’s husband, then his wife shall go out with him.
4If his master will give him a wife, and she will give birth to sons or daughters for him, the wife and her children will be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
5And if the slave will say: ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I won’t go out liberated!’
6then his master shall bring him over to God and bring him over to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.
7“And if a man will sell his daughter as a maid, she shall not go out as the slaves go out.
8If she is bad in the eyes of her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall not dominate so as to sell her to a foreign people in his betrayal of her.
21:8. He shall not dominate. Recall that part of the curse on woman in Eden was that “he’ll dominate you” (Gen 3:16). But here we are told of a case in which a man is explicitly not free to dominate a woman. Even in that worldview that recognized male control of women, there was an understanding that this control is not unlimited. This point of respect for women and recognition of a legal right that they possessed was a first small step in the breakdown of that worldview. And this passage teaches that a commandment can change or become limited even within the Torah itself.
9And if he will designate her for his son, he shall treat her according to the manner of daughters.
10If he will take another for himself, he shall not subtract from her food, her apparel, and her hygiene.
21:10. hygiene. Shalom Paul has shown parallels from ancient Near Eastern texts that indicate that, beside providing food and clothing, the husband must provide the necessary cosmetics for his wife’s cleanliness and appearance. A second possibility is that the word here, ‘
n
th, is cognate to Hebrew m‘ôn, meaning a dwelling, in which case the text means that the husband provides food, clothing, and shelter. A third possibility is the traditional view that this refers to sex, but there is no evidence in support of this.
11And if he will not do these three for her, then she shall go out free. There is no money.
12“One who strikes a man, and he dies, he shall be put to death.
13And one who did not scheme, but God conveyed it to his hand, I shall set a place for you, that he shall flee there.
14But if a man will plot against his neighbor, to kill him with treachery, you shall take him from my altar to die.
21:14. plot. The verb zyd elsewhere refers to cooking (e.g., Jacob’s cooking the stew in Gen 25:29). Here it refers to someone’s committing murder with intent, rather than manslaughter. (It also refers to the Egyptians’ scheme to enslave the Israelites in Exod 18:11.) Like the English expression “to cook up,” the Hebrew word has the range of both cooking and plotting.
15“And one who strikes his father and his mother shall be put to death.
16“And one who steals a man and has sold him, or he was found in his hand, will be put to death.
17“And one who curses his father and his mother shall be put to death.
18“And if people will quarrel, and a man strikes his neighbor with a stone or with a fist, and he does not die, and he falls to bed,
19if he will get up and walk himself outside on his staff, then the one who struck will be innocent. Only he shall compensate for his staying home and shall have him healed.
20“And if a man will strike his slave or his maid with a rod, and he dies by his hand, he shall be avenged.
21Just: if he will stand for a day or two days, he shall not be avenged, because he is his money.
21:21. stand. If he will not die immediately but will live for a day or two after being struck.
21:21. he is his money. The slave is the master’s property. This indicates that the master is empowered to strike his slave, but he is not free to be the immediate cause of the slave’s death.
22“And if people will fight, and they strike a pregnant woman, and her children go out, and there will not be an injury, he shall be penalized according to what the woman’s husband will impose on him, and he will give it by the judges.
21:22. her children go out, and there will not be an injury. This can mean: if the woman has a miscarriage, but there is no other physical damage to the woman herself. Or it can mean: if the woman goes into labor, and the child is born without any physical damage. Scholars generally understand it to be the former.
This passage has been cited in debates over abortion. However, the issues in this case are different, and the wording is so complex, and its meaning is so uncertain, that one should be extremely hesitant to use this case for either side of that debate.
21:22. he will give it by the judges. The meaning is uncertain, but the penalty is determined and enforced in some way involving both the husband and the judges.
23And if there will be an injury, then you shall give a life for a life,
21:23–24. a life for a life, an eye for an eye …The inclusion of “a burn for a burn” here—in a case in which “burn” has no apparent relevance—indicates that this list comes to apply a fundamental principle to this case. Concerning the eye-for-an-eye principle, see the comment on Lev 24:20.
24an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot,
25a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a hurt for a hurt.
26“And if a man will strike his slave’s eye or his maid’s eye and destroy it, he shall let him go, liberated, for his eye.
21:26. liberated, for his eye. Even in a system that allows slavery, a master does not own the slave’s body. The master can require work from a slave, but damaging the slave’s eye or tooth steps over the line, and the master no longer owns the slave. This reminds us also of the Egyptian enslavement of Israel. The Egyptians are not criticized for having slaves, but rather for the way they treat the slaves: “They degraded them…. They made them serve with harshness … they made their lives bitter with hard work …” They killed the male infants. The Torah did not bring about the end of slavery by abolishing it. It established principles regarding slaves’ dignity, rights, and treatment. And these gradually contributed to humans’ own rejection of slavery in much (though not yet all) of the world. This is a crucial point itself: that some of the laws of the Torah command things outright, while others lead humans to grow and change themselves.
27And if he will knock out his slave’s tooth or his maid’s tooth, he shall let him go liberated for his tooth.
28“And if an ox will gore a man or a woman and they die, the ox shall be stoned, and its meat shall not be eaten—and the ox’s owner is innocent.
29And if it was a goring ox from the day before yesterday, and it had been so testified to its owner, and he did not watch it, and it killed a man or a woman, the ox will be stoned, and its owner will be put to death as well.
21:29. from the day before yesterday. Meaning: this ox had gored before.
30If a ransom will be set on him, then he shall give everything that will be set on him for the redemption of his life.
31Whether it will gore a son or it will gore a daughter, according to this judgment shall be done to it.
21:31–32. a son or … a daughter … a slave or a maid. No distinction is made on the basis of sex; a distinction is made on the basis of class: free versus slave.
32If the ox will gore a slave or a maid, he shall pay thirty silver shekels to his owner, and the ox shall be stoned.
33“And if a man will open a pit, or if a man will dig a pit, and he will not cover it, and an ox or an ass will fall there,
34the owner of the pit shall pay; he shall pay back money to its owner, and the dead one will be his.
35And if a man’s ox will strike his neighbor’s ox, and it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and split the money for it, and they shall split the dead one as well.
36Or: if it was known that it was a goring ox from the day before yesterday, and its owner did not watch it, he shall pay an ox for the ox, and the dead one shall be his.
37“If a man will steal an ox or a sheep and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
