Exodus 21 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1446 BC on the earlier dating, or ~1260 BC on the later one, immediately after the Ten Commandments were given at Sinai
Location
Mount Sinai, where Moses receives detailed case law for a people who will soon settle farmland and villages in Canaan
Audience
The people of Israel, and later the judges and elders who applied these rulings in local courts
Situation
God gives Moses a body of specific rulings that begins the section often called the Book of the Covenant. This chapter covers the terms of Hebrew servitude, penalties for murder and manslaughter, injuries in a fight, striking parents, kidnapping, harm to servants and pregnant women, and damage caused by a goring ox.
Key Background
These rulings are written as sample cases, in the form 'if this happens, then this follows', which was the standard legal style across Mesopotamia, so Israel's neighbours would have recognised the format at once. The differences are in substance: Hebrew servitude is capped at six years rather than being permanent, kidnapping a person to sell carries the death penalty, and a servant who loses an eye or a tooth goes free, all of which limit an owner's power in ways other codes did not. The famous phrase about an eye for an eye was a ceiling rather than a demand for mutilation, restricting revenge to the size of the original harm in a culture where a wronged family would otherwise escalate a killing into a feud.
These are the you are to present to them:
If you buy a Hebrew he will serve for six years. But in the seventh year, he goes free — no charge.
If he came in single, he leaves single. If he came in married, his wife leaves with him.
If his master gave him a wife and she had sons or daughters with him, the wife and children belong to the master, and the man leaves on his own.
But if the servant clearly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children — I don't want to go free,'
then master will bring him before He'll bring him to the door or the doorpost, and master will with a pointed tool. Then he'll serve him for life.
If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she won't go free the way male servants do.
If she doesn't please the master who chose for himself, he must let be bought back. He has no right to sell to foreigners, since he with
If he chooses her for his son, he must treat her with the same rights as a daughter.
If the son takes another wife, he can't reduce the first woman's food, clothing, or
If he doesn't provide these three things for her, she can leave for free — no payment required.
Anyone who strikes a person and kills them must be put to death.
But if it wasn't intentional — if it — then I'll designate a where the can for safety.
But if someone deliberately schemes to kill another person, you must take them away from my altar and put them to death.
Anyone who attacks their father or mother must be put to death.
Anyone who someone — whether they've sold them or the person is still in their possession — must be put to death.
Anyone who their father or mother must be put to death.
If two men get into a fight and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist, and the man doesn't die but is bedridden —
if he gets up and walks around outside with a cane, the one who hit him is cleared. But he must pay for the man's and make sure he's
If a man strikes his male or female servant with a rod and the servant dies right there, the owner must be
But if the servant survives for a day or two, the owner won't be punished — since the servant is his
If men are fighting and they hit a pregnant woman so that she but there's no serious injury, the one responsible must pay whatever fine the woman's husband demands, as determined by the judges.
But if there is serious injury, then the penalty is for
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant and destroys it, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the eye.
And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth.
If an gores a man or woman to death, the must be stoned and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the is not held responsible.
But if the ox had a habit of goring and the owner was warned but didn't keep it penned up, and it kills a man or woman — the ox must be stoned and the owner must also be put to death.
If a is demanded of him instead, he must pay whatever is demanded to save his life.
This same rule applies whether the ox gores a son or a daughter.
If the ox gores a male or female servant, the owner must pay of to the servant's master, and the ox must be stoned.
If someone uncovers a pit, or digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and an ox or donkey falls into it,
the owner of the pit must make He must pay the animal's owner, and the dead animal will be his.
If one man's ox injures another man's ox and it dies, they must sell the live ox and split the money. They must also split the dead ox.
But if it was known that the ox had a habit of goring and the owner didn't keep it penned up, the owner must pay full price — ox for ox — and the dead animal will be his.