Exo 21.1-36 will give us miscellaneous laws concerning the law of the bond-servant; marriage and servanthood; murder and manslaughter; capital offenses; personal injury laws concerning freemen and servants; restitution and personal injury on the job; injury caused by an animal; offenses against property through neglect or through an animal.
This chapter is linked to the preceding commandments because the Torah does not recognize a line to be drawn between the ten commandments and the civil laws in the chapters that follow. The Torah treats every phase of human and natural life, civil as well as religious, physical as well as spiritual. We need to look at the Torah in a different way in which most people are taught. So, let’s answer a few questions. Do the laws concerning this country nullify a person’s faith? Do the the civil laws in this country nullify your faith? Do the criminal laws nullify your faith? Do the traffic laws nullify your faith? So, if man’s laws do not nullify your faith, how can God’s laws?
If you break God’s laws will you be in trouble? Yes, so they are connected to your faith. How? Our behavior towards God and our neighbor are connected to our faith. So the Torah is a good thing because it reveals what pleases God, what he wants. It teaches, it instructs, it informs and it guides us. Does the Torah nullify God’s promises? No!
The laws we are going to look at in the following chapters and books will “sort things out” when things happen. You have to have these laws in a civilized society. The bottom line is this: do good to one another, don’t do damage. By these laws “they will know that you know me (John 13.44; 1 John 2.3-4. Always keep these things in mind whenever you study these laws, or if someone challenges you about obeying these laws. And always keep in mind on how these laws apply.
v 1…”Now these are the ordinances that you are to set before them (rehearse and explain them).
v 2…If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve for six years (a type of the Olam Ha Zeh), but in the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment (for his release; like us, we cannot pay God for our release from serving sin).
v 3…If he comes alone (without a wife and children), he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.
v 4…If his master gives him a wife (because he cannot contract a marriage for himself) and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone (the master bought her with his money and had a right to her and the children).
v 5…But if the servant plainly says, “I love my master (a type of the Lord), my wife and my children (the gifts God has given); I will not go out as a free man (but continue in his servanthood because he has seen and experienced the goodness of his master);
v 6…then the master shall bring him to God (the judges-Deut 1.17) then he shall also bring him to the door or the doorpost (attaching him to the household); and his master shall pierce his ears (to listen and to learn; a type of hearing the word of God) with an awl (boring his ear), and he shall serve his master forever (l’olam).
v 7…And if a man sells his daughter (one who is not of age yet-Targum Yonaton) as a female servant, she is not to go free as the male servant do (that are sold as just described; however in the Yovel year and with signs of puberty, and at the death of her master, she can go out with a redemption of silver-Exo 21.26).
v 8…If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who has designated her (as a wife) for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people (not even an Israelite) because of his unfairness to her (by not fulfilling his promise to her father when he sold her to him).
v 9…And if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters (as if she was his daughter and must give her a dowry).
v 10…Id he takes to himself another woman (should the designated husband take on another wife), he shall not reduce her food, clothing, or her conjugal rights (he is obligated to support her).
v 11…And if he will not do these three things (above) for her, she shall go out (divorce is allowed) for nothing (not pay for her freedom) without payment of money (the wife can initiate a divorce if she is not supported with the above-Deut 21.10-14)
v 12….He who strikes a man so that he dies (murder) shall surely be put to death.
v 13…But if he did not lie in wait (for him), but God let him fall into his hand (God’s will-this concept is where the term “act of God” comes from; Pharaoh is an example), then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee (from the avenger of blood and civil authorities; the altar in the wilderness but once in Canaan there were cities of refuge).
v 14…If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him from my altar that he may die.
v 15…And he who strikes his father or mother shall surely be put to death (causing a wound, bruise, mark or scar).
v 16…And he who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death (1 Tim 1.9).
v 17…And he who curses his father or his mother (smites them with his tongue using the name of God) shall surely be put to death.
v 18…And if men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with a fist, and he does not die but remains in bed,
v 19…if he gets up and walks around outside on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished, he shall only pay for his loss of time and and shall take care of him until he is completely healed.
v 20…And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand (immediately), he shall be punished.
v 21…If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance (with death since there was no intent; he would be the loser if he died), for he is property (his money).
v 22…And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet there is no injury (harm to her), he shall surely be fined, according as the woman’s husband will demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decided.
v 23…But if any injury (harm to the woman), then you shall give life for life (if the woman dies),
v 24…eye for an eye, tooth for tooth,, hand for hand, foot for foot,
v 25…burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe (this is called the law of retaliation, or “midah kneged midah” or measure for measure; In the Torah, this was only carried out in the case of murder, otherwise this has to due with fair monetary compensation; the authorized judges determine just civil compensation, not private revenge).
v 26…And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant (as a correction or in anger), and destroyed it (loses sight, etc), he shall let him go free on account of his eye (this was to deter cruelty).
v 27…And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.
v 28…And if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox surely shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall go unpunished (except for the loss of the ox).
v 29…If, however, the ox was previously in the habit of goring, and the owner has been warned, yet he did not confine it, and it kills a man or woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death (by the civil authorities-Gen 9.6).
v 30…If a ransom is demanded of him (instead of death) then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is demanded of him).
v 31…Whether it gores a son or a daughter, it shall be done to him according to the same rule.
v 32…If the ox gores a male or female servant, the owner shall give his master thirty shekels of silver (for the loss) and the ox shall be stoned (this was the betrayal price of Yeshua).
v 33…And if man opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it over, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,
v 34…the owner of the pit shall make restitution; he shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal becomes his (the one who incurred the loss).
v 35…And if a man’s ox hurts some other’s (ox) so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide its price equally; and also they shall divide the dead ox.
v 36…Or if it is known that the ox was previously in the habit of goring, yet its owner has not confined it, he shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead animal shall surely become his own (the one who suffered the loss; the owner did not take care of him and was negligent, so his neglect is punished).
Leave a Reply