Exodus 21: Laws about servants, injuries and animals that harm

In plain English: "Now these are the ordinances (rules for judging cases) that you are to set before them:

In plain English: "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve six years, and in the seventh year he is to go out free, without paying anything.

The Hebrew word: "Servant" is eved. The dictionary gives it as "a servant". The word-by-word meaning in this verse is "slave".

How it is translated: In Exodus this Bible says "servant" or "servants" in 37 of the 41 verses that use the word, and never "slave". Over the whole Bible it says "servant" or "servants" in 677 of the 714 verses that use it, and "slave" or "slaves" in 24.

What changes: Read as "slave", the verse says that a man who buys a Hebrew slave is to set him free in the seventh year.

In plain English: If he comes in by himself, he is to go out by himself. If he is married, his wife is to go out with him.

In plain English: If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and he is to go out by himself.

In plain English: But if the servant plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free,'

In plain English: then his master is to bring him to God (or: to the judges). He is to bring him to the door or the doorpost, and his master is to pierce his ear through with an awl. Then the servant will serve him forever.

The Hebrew word: "God" is elohim, here with the word "the" in front of it (ha-elohim). The dictionary gives it as "gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative".

How it is translated: In Exodus this Bible says "God" for elohim in 94 of the 111 verses that use it, "gods" in 15, and never "judges". It says "God" in all four verses where the same question comes up: here, 22:8, 22:9 and 22:28.

What changes: Read as "the judges", the master brings the servant to the judges (the men who hear a case) instead of to God, and then to the door or the doorpost. The Hebrew allows both readings, and the text does not say which is meant.

In plain English: "If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she is not to go out as the male servants do.

In plain English: If she does not please her master, who has chosen her for himself (or: who has not chosen her), he is to let her be redeemed (bought back). He has no right to sell her to a foreign people, because he has dealt deceitfully with her.

The Hebrew words: "Who has married her to himself" is asher yeadah. The dictionary gives the verb yaad as "to fix upon (by agreement or appointment)" and lists among its meanings "to engage (for marriage)". The Hebrew text is written with the word for "not" (lo) just before it. The reading noted in the margin of the Hebrew text is "to him" (also lo), which sounds the same.

What changes: Read with the written "not", the master is the one "who has not engaged her" for himself. Read as "to him", he is the master who has engaged her for himself. This Bible follows the reading "to him". The rest of the verse is the same either way.

In plain English: If he marries her to his son, he is to deal with her as with a daughter.

In plain English: If he takes another wife for himself, he must not reduce her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.

The Hebrew word: "Marital rights" is onah. The dictionary gives it as "sexual (cohabitation)".

Good to know: This is the only verse in the Bible that uses the word onah.

In plain English: If he does not do these three things for her, she may go out free, without paying any money.

In plain English: "Anyone who strikes a man so that he dies is surely to be put to death,

In plain English: but not if he did not lie in wait, and God let it happen (literally: God let it come into his hand). Then I will appoint a place for you where he may flee.

Good to know: The verse does not say where this place is. Numbers 35:11 later tells Israel to appoint cities of refuge, "that the man slayer who kills any person unwittingly may flee there". Deuteronomy 19:2 tells them to set apart three cities.

In plain English: If a man schemes and acts presumptuously (insolently, with pride) against his neighbor to kill him, you are to take him from my altar, so that he dies.

In plain English: "Anyone who strikes his father or his mother is surely to be put to death.

In plain English: "Anyone who kidnaps a person and sells him, or if the person is found in his hand, is surely to be put to death.

In plain English: "Anyone who curses his father or his mother is surely to be put to death.

In plain English: "If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but is confined to bed,

In plain English: if he gets up again and walks around outside on his staff, then the one who struck him is cleared. Only he must pay for the man's lost time (literally: his sitting still) and must see that he is thoroughly healed.

In plain English: "If a man strikes his male servant or his female servant with a rod, and the servant dies under his hand, the man is surely to be punished (literally: avenged).

The Hebrew word: "Punished" is naqam, literally "avenged". The dictionary gives it as "to grudge, i.e. avenge or punish".

How it is translated: This verb is in only 2 verses of Exodus, this one and verse 21, and this Bible says "punished" in both. In the 31 verses of the whole Bible that use it, this Bible says a form of "avenge" in 19 and a form of "punish" in 5.

Good to know: The text does not say what the punishment is. Verse 12 names death for a man who strikes a man so that he dies.

In plain English: However, if the servant gets up (or: survives) after a day or two, the man is not to be punished, for the servant is his property (literally: his silver).

In plain English: "If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth early (or: so that she loses the child), and yet no harm follows, he is surely to be fined as much as the woman's husband demands, and he is to pay as the judges allow.

The Hebrew words: "Gives birth prematurely" is, word for word, "her children come out": the verb yatsa, to go out, and yeled, something born. "Harm" is ason, which the dictionary gives as "hurt".

What changes: The Hebrew says only that the children come out, and does not say whether they live. Read as a premature birth, the child is born early and alive. Read as a miscarriage, the child is lost. "No harm" can mean no harm to the woman, or no harm to the woman or the child. The Hebrew does not say whose harm it means.

Good to know: Exodus 23:26 uses a different word for miscarrying, shakol, which the dictionary gives as "properly, to miscarry". Verse 22 does not use it. The Greek Old Testament reads this verse differently: in Brenton's English, "her child be born imperfectly formed", and its verse 23 begins, "But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life".

Church tradition: Jewish and Christian readers have taken the verse both ways. The text does not choose between them.

In plain English: But if any harm follows, then you are to give life for life,

In plain English: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

Church tradition: Readers take "eye for eye" (verses 23 to 25) in two ways. Some take it literally: the one who injures another suffers the same injury. Others take it as a measure of payment: the injury is paid for with a fair amount, and no more. The Talmud, the old collection of Jewish teaching, reads it as payment for the injury. Jesus quotes the saying in Matthew 5:38. The text does not say how the penalty is carried out.

Good to know: The same kind of list is in Leviticus 24:20 ("fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth") and Deuteronomy 19:21 ("life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot"). In verses 26 and 27 of this chapter, a servant whose eye or tooth is lost is let go free.

In plain English: burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

In plain English: "If a man strikes the eye of his male servant or the eye of his female servant and destroys it, he is to let the servant go free for the eye's sake.

In plain English: If he knocks out the tooth of his male servant or the tooth of his female servant, he is to let the servant go free for the tooth's sake.

In plain English: "If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull is surely to be stoned, and its meat is not to be eaten. But the owner of the bull is not to be held responsible.

In plain English: But if the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and this has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the bull is to be stoned, and its owner is also to be put to death.

In plain English: If a ransom is laid on him, he is to give, for the redemption of his life, whatever is laid on him.

The Hebrew word: "Ransom" is kofer. The dictionary gives it as "properly, a cover, i.e. (literally) a village (as covered in); (specifically) bitumen (as used for coating), and the henna plant (as used for dyeing); figuratively, a redemption-price".

How it is translated: This word is in 17 verses of the Bible, and this Bible says "ransom" in 10 of them. In Exodus it is in 2 verses, here and 30:12, and it says "ransom" in both.

Good to know: In Exodus 30:12 each man gives "a ransom for his soul to Yahweh" when the people are counted.

In plain English: Whether it has gored a son or a daughter, it is to be done to him according to this judgment.

In plain English: If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver are to be given to their master, and the bull is to be stoned.

The Hebrew word: "Shekel" is sheqel. The dictionary gives it as "probably a weight; used as a commercial standard".

Good to know: This is the first verse in Exodus that names the shekel. The word is in 8 verses of Exodus. Exodus 30:13 says "the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs)".

In plain English: "If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,

In plain English: the owner of the pit is to make it good. He is to give money to the animal's owner, and the dead animal will be his.

In plain English: "If one man's bull injures another man's bull so that it dies, then they are to sell the live bull and divide its price, and they are also to divide the dead animal.

In plain English: Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he is surely to pay bull for bull, and the dead animal will be his own.