Exodus 21:12

Personal Injuries

21:12 ¹ “Whoever strikes someone ²  so that he dies ³  must surely be put to death. ⁴ 

Exodus 21:2

Hebrew Servants

21:2 ⁵ “If you buy ⁶  a Hebrew servant, ⁷  he is to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year he will go out free ⁸  without paying anything. ⁹ 

Exodus 19:6-7

19:6 and you will be to me ¹⁰  a kingdom of priests ¹¹  and a holy nation.’ ¹²  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

19:7 So Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel. He set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him,

Psalms 75:10

75:10 God says, ¹³ 

“I will bring down all the power of the wicked;

the godly will be victorious.” ¹⁴ 

Psalms 101:8

101:8 Each morning I will destroy all the wicked people in the land,

and remove all evildoers from the city of the Lord.

Proverbs 20:8

20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge ¹⁵ 

separates out ¹⁶  all evil with his eyes. ¹⁷ 

Proverbs 25:5

25:5 remove the wicked from before the king, ¹⁸ 

and his throne ¹⁹  will be established in righteousness. ²⁰ 

[21:12]  ¹ sn The underlying point of this section remains vital today: The people of God must treat all human life as sacred.

[21:12]  ² tn The construction uses a Hiphil participle in construct with the noun for “man” (or person as is understood in a law for the nation): “the one striking [of] a man.” This is a casus pendens (independent nominative absolute); it indicates the condition or action that involves further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).

[21:12]  ³ tn The Hebrew word וָמֵת (vamet) is a Qal perfect with vav consecutive; it means “and he dies” and not “and killed him” (which require another stem). Gesenius notes that this form after a participle is the equivalent of a sentence representing a contingent action (GKC 333 §112.n). The word shows the result of the action in the opening participle. It is therefore a case of murder or manslaughter.

[21:12]  ⁴ sn See A. Phillips, “Another Look at Murder,” JJS 28 (1977): 105-26.

[21:2]  ⁵ sn See H. L. Elleson, “The Hebrew Slave: A Study in Early Israelite Society,” EvQ 45 (1973): 30-35; N. P. Lemche, “The Manumission of Slaves – The Fallow Year – The Sabbatical Year – The Jobel Year,” VT 26 (1976): 38-59, and “The ‘Hebrew Slave,’ Comments on the Slave Law – Ex. 21:2-11,” VT 25 (1975): 129-44.

[21:2]  ⁶ tn The verbs in both the conditional clause and the following ruling are imperfect tense: “If you buy…then he will serve.” The second imperfect tense (the ruling) could be taken either as a specific future or an obligatory imperfect. Gesenius explains how the verb works in the conditional clauses here (see GKC 497 §159.bb).

[21:2]  ⁷ sn The interpretation of “Hebrew” in this verse is uncertain: (l) a gentilic ending, (2) a fellow Israelite, (3) or a class of mercenaries of the population (see W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:431). It seems likely that the term describes someone born a Hebrew, as opposed to a foreigner (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 210). The literature on this includes: M. P. Gray, “The Habiru-Hebrew Problem,” HUCA 29 (1958): 135-202.

[21:2]  ⁸ sn The word חָפְשִׁי (khofshi) means “free.” It is possible that there is some connection between this word and a technical term used in other cultures for a social class of emancipated slaves who were freemen again (see I. Mendelsohn, “New Light on the Hupsu,” BASOR 139 [1955]: 9-11).

[21:2]  ⁹ tn The adverb חִנָּם (hinnam) means “gratis, free”; it is related to the verb “to be gracious, show favor” and the noun “grace.”

[19:6]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹¹ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ¹² tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[75:10]  ¹³ tn The words “God says” are not in the Hebrew text. They are supplied in the translation to clarify that God speaks in v. 10.

[75:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and all the horns of the wicked I will cut off, the horns of the godly will be lifted up.” The imagery of the wild ox’s horn is once more utilized (see vv. 4-5).

[20:8]  ¹⁵ tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.

[20:8]  ¹⁶ tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.

[20:8]  ¹⁷ sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.

[25:5]  ¹⁸ sn These two verses present first an illustration and then the point (so it is emblematic parallelism). The passage uses imperatives to teach that the wicked must be purged from the kingdom.

[25:5]  ¹⁹ sn “Throne” is a metonymy of subject (or adjunct); it is the symbol of the government over which the king presides (cf. NCV, TEV).

[25:5]  ²⁰ sn When the king purges the wicked from his court he will be left with righteous counselors and his government therefore will be “established in righteousness” – it will endure through righteousness (cf. NLT “made secure by justice”). But as J. H. Greenstone says, “The king may have perfect ideals and his conduct may be irreproachable, but he may be misled by unscrupulous courtiers” (Proverbs, 264).