It is very important to note that various law codes already existed in the ancient Near East before the giving of the Mosaic Covenant. These included laws in the Akkadian civilization located in Mesopotamia in the twentieth century B.C. (e.g., the Laws of Esnunna).354There were also the laws in the Sumerian civilization, which replaced that of Akkad in the nineteenth century (e.g., the Code of Lipit-Istar).355Moreover laws in the Babylonian civilization that followed the Sumerian in the eighteenth century (e.g., the Code of Hammurabi)356existed, as did others. People living in the Near East at the time of the Exodus (fifteenth century) knew these laws and lived by them. The Mosaic Covenant presupposes this body of legal literature. It was not given as a comprehensive legal system to a people living without any laws. Rather it was a series of instructions God gave as Israel's king for His people to govern their behavior in certain specific matters. This fact explains why the Torah (Law of Moses, lit. instruction) does not contain fundamental instruction in many basic areas of law such as monogamy, for example. The instructions in the Law of Moses confirmed certain existing laws, cancelled other laws, and changed still others for the Israelites as the will of God for them.357
Moses revealed the laws that follow analogically (i.e., on the basis of the association of ideas). Analogical thinking has been more characteristic of eastern cultures and rational thinking more typical of western cultures throughout history generally speaking.
The "ordinances"were not laws in the usual sense of that word but the rights of those living within Israel. The Book of the Covenant (20:22-23:33) was Israel's "Bill of Rights."
"A selection of judgments' is provided as a sample of the divine judgments which Moses gave the people. A total of forty-two judgments' is given.358The number forty-two apparently stems from the fact that the Hebrew letters in the first word of the section, and these' (w'lh), add up precisely to the number forty-two (7 x 6). (There may also be a desire to have seven laws for each of the six days of work [cf. Ex 20:11]). This suggests that the laws in 21:1-23:12 are to be understood merely as a representative selection of the whole Mosaic Law. It is not an attempt at a complete listing of all the laws. The purpose of the selection was to provide a basis for teaching the nature of divine justice. By studying specific cases of the application of God's will in concrete situations, the reader of the Pentateuch could learn the basic principles undergirding the covenant relationship. Whereas the ten words' provided a general statement of the basic principles of justice which God demanded of his people, the examples selected here further demonstrated how those principles, or ideals, were to be applied to real life situations."359
21:2-4 The ancients practiced slavery widely in the Near East. These laws protected slaves in Israel better than the laws of other nations protected slaves in those countries.
"In Israel slaves had far better rights than elsewhere in the ancient Near East."360
We should read verse 4 with the following condition added at the end of the verse: unless he pays a ransom for them. This was possible as is clear from the instructions regarding the redemption of people that follow.
Why did God permit slavery at all? Slavery as a social institution becomes evil when others disregard the human rights of slaves. God protected the rights of slaves in Israel. (Likewise Paul did not urge Philemon to set his slave Onesimus free but to treat him as a brother.) As amended by the Torah, slavery became indentured servant living in Israel for all practical purposes, similar to household servanthood in Victorian England. Mosaic law provided that male slaves in Israel should normally serve as slaves no more than a few years and then go free. In other nations, slaves often remained enslaved for life.
"We can then conclude that Exodus 21:2-4 owes nothing to non-Biblical law. Rather it is a statement of belief about the true nature of Israelite society: it should be made up of free men. Economic necessities may lead an Israelite to renounce his true heritage, but his destiny is not in the end to be subject to purely financial considerations. Exodus 21:2 is no ordinary humanitarian provision, but expresses Israel's fundamental understanding of its true identity. No matter how far reality failed to match the ideal, that ideal must be reaffirmed in successive legislation. So, in gradually worsening economic conditions both Deuteronomy (15:1-18) and the Holiness Code (Lev. 25:39-43) reiterate it. It is the male Israelite's right to release (Exod. 21:2-4) which explains why the laws of slavery (21:2-11) head that legislation which sought to come to terms with Israel's new found statehood with all its consequent economic problems under the united monarchy."361
Presumably female as well as male slaves could experience redemption from their condition at any time.
21:5-6 The Code of Hammurabi decreed that the master of a rebellious slave could cut off the ear of that slave. So the ear (v. 6) evidently marked the status of a slave in the ancient Near East (cf. Ps. 40:6).
Females did not enjoy as much freedom as males in the ancient Near East and in Israel. They were subject to the fathers or husbands in authority over them as well as to God (cf. Eph. 5:22-24; Col. 3:18). Verses 7-11 describe a girl whom her father sells as a servant (Heb. amah, v. 7) for marriage, not for slavery.362In such a case the girl would become the servant of the father of her husband-to-be who would than give her to his son as his wife. She would remain in her prospective father-in-law's household unless someone redeemed her before the consummation of her marriage. If for some reason her prospective father-in-law became displeased with her, he was to allow someone to redeem her (set her free by the payment of a price). Her redeemer could be herself or someone else (cf. Deut. 24:1). Her master was not to sell her to some other person, a "foreign"person in that sense (v. 8). Such treatment was unfair to her because it violated her legitimate human rights. "Conjugal rights"(v. 10) here refers to her living quarters and other support provisions, not sexual intercourse. This passage is not discussing marriage as such (after physical consummation) as the NIV and AV imply.
21:12-14 The Torah upheld capital punishment for murder (v. 12), which God commanded of Noah (Gen. 9:6) and people in the Near East practiced from then on. It did not permit capital punishment in the case of manslaughter (unpremeditated murder, v. 13), which the Code of Hammurabi allowed.363
In the ancient East whoever sought sanctuary in a sacred place was safe from punishment even if he or she had deliberately murdered someone. The Torah removed that protection in the case of murder. God regarded the sanctity of human life greater than the sanctity of a place (v. 4).
21:15-17 The Code of Hammurabi specified that the person who struck his father should have his hands cut off.364The Torah took a stronger position requiring the death of the person who struck either parent. The reason seems to be that by doing so the striker did not honor his parents but revolted against God's ordained authority over him or her (v. 15; cf. 20:12).
"In the first place age is not a factor in the determining of a delinquent in the ancient Near East: age is never mentioned in the [non-biblical] texts. A minor, for all intents and purposes, was one who was living in his or her parent's house. There he or she has duties and responsibilities which place him directly under the authority of the parent. Responsibility for a minor's behavior rested solely with the parent. Any anti-social act committed by the minor was considered also an offense against the parent who dealt with it accordingly. When proceedings are initiated against a minor, as we shall see, it is the parent, not the courts, who institutes the proceedings. . . .
"In ancient times no provision was made for a minor committing a criminal act, that is, there was no special protection extended to juveniles convicted in criminal cases: the penalty for both an adult and a minor was the same. This represents a striking difference from our judicial system whereby a minor is not held to be as criminally responsible for his conduct as an adult. In effect he is granted a certain amount of protection by the courts, and his sentence is not as severe as an adult's would be in a similar case. It is curious that in the few examples we have of felonies committed by minors in the ancient Near East the opposite situation prevails. A minor receives a more severe sentence than an adult would in a comparable case. . . .
"At this point we should not get too exercised over whether or not these punishments were ever carried out. It is considered today most unlikely that these types of punishments, or talionic punishment in general, were ever put into practice in the ancient Near East.365What is important here is the severity accorded these offenses in the light of other offenses listed in the same legal corpus. It is most significant that in both cases the assault is against a parent. Assault against another person would subject the minor to a lesser penalty. In Mesopotamian law a minor striking someone other than his parent would not have his hand cut off; depending on his status he would be fined or flogged.366Likewise, in ancient Israel he would be fined and not subject to the death penalty (Exod. 21:18-19). Thus we have a situation where striking a non-parent makes one subject to regular criminal law, but striking a parent makes one subject to a juvenile delinquent' law which carries a more severe penalty."367
Kidnapping was also a capital offense (v. 16; 20:15; Gen. 37:28) as was cursing (dishonoring) one's parents (v. 17; cf. 20:12). Verse 15 deals with a criminal offense, but verse 17 describes a civil offense (cf. Lev. 20:9; Deut. 27:16; Prov. 20:20; 30:11). Marcus went on to distinguish this type of offense as follows.
"Turning now to non-criminal acts, civil or status offenses, we review the salient points of the modern definition of a juvenile delinquent as one who is incorrigible, ungovernable, or habitually disobedient. The operative word in most modern definitions is habitual.' An isolated occurrence does not make a child delinquent. Note that the New York State definition speaks of the child as being habitually disobedient,' and the California one terms the delinquent as one who habitually refuses to obey.' We shall see that a number of ancient Near Eastern legal texts make this distinction as well. This is important because it enables us to distinguish what is clearly delinquency from what is only what we call generation gap' disagreements. The ancients were well aware of this generation gap between parents and children."368
All of these crimes worthy of death (in vv. 12-17) were serious in God's eyes. They either violated a basic right of a human being created in God's image or were expressions of rebellion against God's revealed authority in the home, the basic unit of society.
"Life, in essence, is the property of God; the possession of it is leased to human beings for a number of years. This lease can be extended or contracted in accordance with God's will. (Cf. 1 Kings 21:27-29; 2 Kings 20:1-6; Job 1:12-19.) When a man arrogates to himself the right of ownership in the life of human beings and interferes with the right of enjoyment of life by taking it away--that is, killing it--he has violated one of the essential laws of God and therefore forfeits his own right to the possession of life."369
Moses cited five cases in this section, as was true in the preceding one (vv. 12-17).
21:18-19 The Torah made no distinction in the penalty an aggressor paid because of his intent (vv. 18-28). The inferior Hammurabi Code did by permitting the assailant to pay less damage if he claimed no intent to cause injury.370
21:20-21 As other people, slaves also enjoyed protection from murderers (v. 20; cf. v. 12). However the slave owner likewise experienced protection from execution if his punishment of a slave was not the direct cause of the slave's death. In this case the law regarded the loss of the slave as sufficient punishment of the master (v. 21).
21:22 Manslaughter of an unborn child carried a fine (v. 22). The reason seems to have rested on two assumptions. First, accidental killing is not as serious a crime as deliberate killing. Second, a fetus, though a human life, does not have the same status as a self-sufficient human being.371
Pro-abortion advocates frequently appeal to Exodus 21:22 to support their claim that a fetus is not a person and, therefore, abortion is not murder.
"In other words, if you cause the death of the fetus, you merely pay a fine; if you cause the death of the woman, you lose your own life. Thus the Bible clearly shows that a fetus is notconsidered a person. If the fetus were considered to be a person, then the penalty for killing it would be the same as for killing the woman--death. Abortion, then, is notmurder."372
However other Scriptures present the fetus as a person, a real human being (Job 10:8-12; 15:14; Ps. 51:5; 58:3; 139:13-16; Eccles. 11:5; Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15). This was the prevailing opinion in the ancient Near East as well.373
In contrast to other ancient Near Eastern law codes, the Torah made no differentiation on the basis of the woman's social class. It treated all equally. Also only the man who caused the injury was liable, not other members of his family who could suffer punishment for his offense and often did in other ancient Near Eastern societies. Principles explained elsewhere in the Torah determined the penalty the guilty party had to pay.374
21:23-25 God intended the "eye for eye"provision to limit punishment rather than giving free reign to it. The law of retaliation (lex talionis) became common in the ancient Near East. It sought to control the tendency of someone who had only suffered a minor injury to take major revenge. For example, a man might kill the person who beat up his brother (cf. Gen. 4:23). God forbade such excessive vengeance among His people, however, and limited them so that they should only exact equal payment for offenses committed against them and no more.
"This law of the talion, for a long time thought to be a more primitive kind of penalty, the reflection of a barbaric law form, has been shown by more recent comparative studies to be a later development, designed to remedy the inevitable abuses made possible by monetary payment for physical injury."375
"According to Num. xxxv 31 it is only from a willful murderer that it is forbidden to accept ransom [payment in place of punishment]; this implies that in all other instances the taking of a ransom is permitted. . . .
"This being so, the meaning here in our paragraph of the expression life for life[ v. 23] is that the one who hurts the woman accidentally shall be obliged to pay her husband the value of her life if she dies, and of her children if they die."376
21:26-27 In contrast to verse 27, the Code of Hammurabi prescribed that in such a case the offender had to pay the slave's master half the price of the slave.377If a master blinded his own slave, this code required no penalty. The Torah shows greater concern for the slave. This law would have discouraged masters from physically abusing their slaves.
21:28-32 The Hammurabi Code specified the death of the son of the owner of the ox if the ox killed the son of another man (v. 31).378The Torah required the owner's life or a ransom (v. 30). Note, too, that verses 31 and 32 value the lives of male and female slaves the same. The value of an adult slave under the Torah was 30 shekels of silver (cf. Matt. 26:15). Under the Code of Hammurabi it was 1/3 of a mina of silver (about 17 shekels).379The ox also died by stoning. In this way God taught His people that they should view even slaves as created in His image (cf. Gen. 9:5). The goring ox (vv. 28-32) is the typical example of death caused by cattle or domestic animals.
"The fate of the ox gives clear evidence of the theological principle of the subordination of the animal world to human sovereignty. That the fatal goring of one ox by another required only compensation shows the relative insignificance of the animal-to-animal relationship (vv. 35-36)."380
21:33-34 The pit represents a typical case of damage caused by an inanimate object or natural phenomenon. These specific cases doubtless served as precedents for other similar cases.
21:35-36 The law concerning a cattle fight is the same as one in the Laws of Esnunna, a twentieth century B.C. Akkadian law code.381However the Torah differentiated between an ox that gored habitually and one that did not in the case of one ox goring another. Thus the Torah showed higher regard for the rights and responsibilities of individuals.
22:1-4 According to the Code of Hammurabi a thief should die if he could not repay what he had stolen382or if he stole by breaking in.383The Torah modified this law by annulling the death penalty and substituting the penalty of being sold into slavery in the first case. In the second case it annulled the death penalty and protected the life of the victim. Verses 1 and 4 of chapter 22 go together and deal with theft generally. The reason for the fivefold and fourfold penalties appears to be that the thief was taking the means of another person's livelihood.384Verses 2 and 3, which deal with breaking and entering, address a special type of theft. Perhaps the law assumed that the thief's intent was murder as well as theft if he broke in at night but only theft if he broke in in daylight. If so, we might assume that if his intentions turned out to have been otherwise, the law would deal with him accordingly. The text gives only the typical case. Perhaps the logic was that at night the victim's life was in greater danger so the law allowed him to use more force in resisting his assailant than in the daytime.
22:5-6 The fourth case involves damage due to grazing or burning. In the first case (v. 5) the Torah required restitution from "the best"of the offender whereas the Code of Hammurabi required only restitution.385These two cases further illustrate God's respect for the rights of others.
22:7-15 Next we have four cases involving property held in custody. In the Hammurabi Code the penalty for losing or allowing a thief to steal what someone else had committed to one's trust was death386as was falsely accusing someone of this crime.387The Torah required only twofold payment in both situations (v. 9).
Second, if what someone entrusted to his neighbor for safe keeping perished by accident (vv. 10-13) the neighbor was not responsible to make restitution. This was the law under the Code of Hammurabi too.388
Third, if someone borrowed something and it then suffered damage or it died (v. 14-15a) the borrower was responsible to make restitution. This was the case unless the owner (lender) was present when the damage or death took place. In that case the lender was responsible for his own property.
Fourth, if someone rented something and then damaged it or it died (v. 15b) the borrower was not responsible to make restitution since the fee he had paid covered his liability. The Code of Hammurabi specified no liability in either of these last two cases.389
22:16-17 Next we have a case of seduction. Here the girl is viewed as the property of her father. If a young couple had premarital sex, the young man had to marry the young woman and give his father-in-law the customary payment (i.e., a dowry) to do so. The girl's father could refuse this offer, however, in which case the boy would not get the girl but would still have to pay the dowry.390This law pertained to situations in which seduction (persuasion), not rape, had resulted in intercourse. Moses did not comment on other similar situations here. Israel was evidently to function in harmony with previously existing law in these cases.391
"As many scholars recognize, the second half of the Book of the Covenant begins at Exodus 22:18 and the stipulations undergo a change in content to match what is clearly a change in form. The first half (Ex. 20:22-22:17) is fundamentally casuistic, whereas the latter half is not.392That is, the stipulations now are expressed as prescriptions or prohibitions with little or no reference to the penalty attached to violation in each case."393
22:18-20 God prohibited three more practices each of which brought the death penalty. All involve idolatry.
In the ancient world, people made a distinction between black magic and white magic. The former sought to harm someone, and the latter did not. The Hammurabi Code prohibited the former only,394but the Torah outlawed both without distinction. Magic constituted an attempt to override God's will. Probably Moses mentioned only the sorceress (v. 18) because women were particularly active in the practice of magic. Probably the law would have dealt with a sorcerer the same way.395
Having intercourse with animals (bestiality, v. 19) was something the Canaanites and Mesopotamians attributed to their gods and which they practiced in worshipping those gods. Whereas some law codes imposed the death penalty for having intercourse with certain animals, the Torah prohibited this practice completely.
The third ordinance (v. 20) prohibited offering any sacrifice to idols.
22:21-27 The next collection of laws deals with various forms of oppression. The first section deals with love for the poor and needy. While the Israelites were not to tolerate the idolatrous customs of foreigners, they were to manifest love toward the foreigners themselves as well as toward the poor and needy generally. The Israelites were to remember the oppression they had endured in Egypt and were to refrain from oppressing others. They were not only to refrain from doing evil but were to do positive good (vv. 26-27).
22:28 This verse urges reverence toward God and the leaders of the community. Having dealt with proper behavior toward people on a lower social level, God also specified how to deal with those on higher levels of authority.
22:29-30 The law for firstfruits required the Israelites to offer several offerings to the Lord. Perhaps the purpose of allowing animals to stay with their mothers for the first seven days of their lives was to allow them to develop safely.396It may also have been to give natural relief to the dam by suckling its offspring.397
22:31 Animal flesh torn in the field before humans ate it was unsuitable for Israelite consumption. Not only might the animal have died from a communicable disease but second-rate food like this was inappropriate for people set apart to a holy God.
This section appeals for justice toward all people. The subject of the legislation now shifts from love for all to justice for all. The Israelites should treat all people justly, not only the rich but also the poor (v. 3), the enemy as well as the friend (v. 4). Jezebel later did to Naboth what verse 7 warns against (cf. 1 Kings 21:10-13).
"Till now the text dealt with positive and negative precepts that are valid at all times; now we have a series of precepts that are to be observed at given times, commandments that apply to seasons that are specifically dedicated to the service of the Lord, and are intended to remind the Israelites of the covenant that the Lord made with them, and of the duty resting upon them to be faithful to this covenant."398
23:10-11 The people were to observe the sabbatical year (cf. Lev. 25:2-7; Deut. 15:1-3). The Israelites' failure to observe 70 sabbatical years resulted in God removing Israel from the Promised Land to Babylon for 70 years to give the land its rest (2 Chron. 36:20-21).
23:12 God intended sabbath observance to give His people and even their laboring animals needed rest (v. 12).
