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Exodus 21:18–21, 26–27
“When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth” (Ex. 21:26–27).
“You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13) in its broad application deals not only with actual murder but also with all unlawful physical harm. The case laws recorded for us in today’s passage give examples to Israel’s judges of how to apply the sixth commandment in cases of physical injury.
Exodus 21:18–19 reveals what Israelite legal authorities should do when two free Israelites get into a fight and one is injured. The directions cover all fights between freemen, both those that involve weapons (“stone”) and those that do not (“fist”) (v. 18). If one person is significantly injured in a fight such that he needs an extended recovery period and cannot work, the person who injured him must compensate him for his lost wages (vv. 18–19). The fight in view here is a spontaneous struggle, not a premeditated act wherein one person sets out to assault another. In other cases, judges would have to take into consideration any extra circumstances such as premeditation when they evaluated fights that did not conform in every way to what 21:18–19 describes. These verses provide a basic starting point for judgments related to all kinds of physical assaults: when harm puts someone out of work, the guilty party must render compensation for income lost.
Verses 20–21 and 26–27 give principles to apply when a master harms his slave. (We will look at verses 22–25 in our next study.) Corporal punishment even of adults was a reality in the ancient world and was accepted in the West until very recently. Here we see how God’s law puts limits on what physical punishment could be applied. If a master beat his slave so severely that he died, the slave was to be avenged—the master was to be punished as a murderer (v. 20). On the other hand, verse 21 says that if the punishment put the slave out of work for only a day or two and he could then get up and labor again (this is the sense of the verse), the master was not to be punished. He could not very well compensate himself for loss of the servant’s labor, for as the slave’s owner, the financial shortfall would be his. If the injury did not cause death but resulted in loss of limb, the slave had to be freed to compensate him for the harm done (vv. 26–27).
Regulations like these were unheard of in the ancient world. In other nations, masters could treat their slaves however they wanted and could even kill them with impunity. Not in Israel. A slave was not to be viewed as less than human because of his status but enjoyed the same protections of life and limb as free people.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
John Calvin comments on today’s passage, “In the sight of God, there is neither slave nor free-man, it is clear that he sins as greatly who smites a slave, as if he had struck a free-man.” The protections offered to slaves in the ancient world in the law of God helps us see that He values all people no matter their social standing. It is a great sin not to give people their legal rights simply because they have a lower social status than others.
For Further Study
- Leviticus 19:15
- Deuteronomy 24:7
- Galatians 3:28
- Colossians 3:9–11