The Law · Chapter 21 of 40

Exodus 21

God gives Israel case laws to govern daily life justly. Rules protect Hebrew servants, granting freedom in the seventh year, and honor the servant who chooses to stay out of love. Laws address violence, striking parents, kidnapping, and injuries, including the principle of life for life and eye for eye to limit vengeance. Further rules assign responsibility when an ox gores or a pit causes harm, weighing intent, negligence, and restitution.

What happens in Exodus 21

Following the covenant at Sinai, God details judgments, practical laws applying His holiness to community life. A Hebrew servant serves six years and goes free in the seventh; if he loves his master and family and refuses freedom, his ear is bored at the doorpost and he serves permanently. Provisions protect a daughter sold as a maidservant from mistreatment. Capital laws address murder, distinguishing intentional killing from accidental death for which a place of refuge is appointed, and condemn striking or cursing parents and kidnapping.

Injury laws require compensation for lost time and healing, and set the measured standard of life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limiting retaliation to fit the harm. A master who maims a servant must free him. Finally, laws govern an ox that gores, holding negligent owners responsible, and assign restitution for animals lost to an uncovered pit or a goring ox, weighing whether the danger was known beforehand.

Exodus 21 in context

Exodus 21 begins the Book of the Covenant, the case laws that follow the Ten Commandments and apply them to Israel's ordinary disputes. Compared with other ancient Near Eastern codes, these laws show striking concern for the vulnerable, including servants and women, and value human life above property.

The famous eye for eye was not a license for revenge but a limit, ensuring punishment matched the crime and curbing escalating vendettas. These statutes shaped a just society under God.

Main themes of Exodus 21

Exodus 21 (KJV)

1Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. 2If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 3If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. 5And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever. 7And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. 8If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. 9And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 10If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. 11And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money. 12He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. 13And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. 14But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die. 15And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. 16And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. 17And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. 18And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: 19If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed. 20And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. 21Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. 22If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. 26And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. 27And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake. 28If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. 29But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. 30If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. 31Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. 32If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. 33And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; 34The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. 35And if one man’s ox hurt another’s, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide. 36Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.

Verses to carry from Exodus 21

“If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.”Exodus 21:2

“Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.”Exodus 21:6

“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,”Exodus 21:24

Reflection

God's holiness reaches into the ordinary: disputes, injuries, servants, and oxen. Faith is not confined to the mountain of fire but shapes how we treat the vulnerable and settle wrongs. Consider the willing servant with the bored ear, and see the love of Christ who would not go free. How does His servant heart reshape your own?

A prayer from Exodus 21