Exodus 21

If slavery has been truly called “the open sore” of this modern world, it was the universal leprosy of the ancient. It was a contingency which might possibly befall any and every man. Debt easily led to it. Landless poverty drove men to it. War fattened on it. One may read ancient history and easily overlook it amid the circumstances of the rise and fall of cities and empires, and the varied interest of political and social struggles. But in fact slavery was a universal bog, sickening and unstable, on which the whole of ancient society was built. Any man and any family and any neighborhood might sink in it. A battle, a bad harvest, or sickness, an error, a fault, inability to pay taxes, or even sheer force and fraud, might seize any one. The whole of ancient thought was pervaded with a sort of tragic melancholy. Black fate, whom their heathen imagination had put in the place of God, had suspended over every man not only death but ruin worse than death ; and that not only for himself but also for his wife and children with him ; a descent to the domination of cruelty, lust, and exile, to the condition of a beast and the estimation of a thing. In every community that achieved any degree of civilization the great majority were slaves. Ten, to one freeman, as at Athens, seems to have been no unusual proportion. Incredible numbers of human chattels accumulated in Egypt, Assyria, and Rome, and other great monarchies. The mind loathes the contemplation of the festering horrors of their condition. The Israelite alone was debarred by his constitution from admitting perpetual slavery. Grey.

Slavery, universal in the ancient world, was recognized by the Mosaic institutions ; but of all the ancient lawgivers Moses alone endeavored to mitigate its evils. His regulations always remind the Israelites that they themselves were formerly bondslaves in Egypt. The free-born Hebrew might be reduced to slavery, either by his own consent, or in condemnation as an insolvent debtor, or as a thief unable to make restitution. In either case he became free at the end of seven years’ service. If he refused to accept his manumission he might remain in servitude. But to prevent any fraudulent or compulsory renunciation of this right, the ceremony of reconsigning himself to bondage was public ; he appeared before the magistrate, his ear was bored, and he was thus judicially delivered back to his master ; but even this servitude expired at the Jubilee, when the free-born Hebrew returned into the possession of his patrimonial estate. The Law expressly abhorred the condemnation of an Israelite to perpetual servitude. As a punishment for debt slavery, at least under its mitigated form, may be considered as merciful to the sufferer, and certainly more advantageous to the creditor and to the public than imprisonment. The Israelite sold to a stranger might at any time be redeemed by his kindred on payment of the value of the service that remained due. He who became a slave, being already married, recovered the freedom of his wife and family as well as his own; he who married a fellow-slave, left her and her children as the property of his master. The discharged slave was not to be cast forth upon society naked and destitute; he was to be decently clothed, and liberally furnished out of the flock, and out of the floor, and out of the wine-press. Milman.

The laws given of God through Moses cannot be held responsible for the existence of slavery. They found it existing and proceeded to modify it; to ordain that the slave had rights which the master and the nation were bound to respect—in short, to tone down the severities of the system from unendurable slavery to very tolerable servitude. H. C.—Whatever the obligation under which a Hebrew slave came among the Jews, never was his person regarded as chattel, goods, or property. His services were bought for six years, or till the Year of Jubilee; but his person never was regarded as property to be sold in the market. J. C.

A religion which so sharply emphasized the high dignity of man, as a being made in the image of God; a legislation based on that very idea of man’s worth, and which in all its enactments insisted not only upon the highest justice but also upon the tenderest pity and forbearance, especially toward the necessitous and the unfortunate; a people, in fine, which had itself smarted under the yoke of slavery and had become a nation only by emancipation—would necessarily be solicitous to do away wherever it was practicable with the unnatural state of slavery, by which human nature is degraded. Still at the period of the Mosaic legislation, slavery was so closely intertwined with the whole economy of all nations that its entire abolition could not at once be taken in hand, even by the Israelites, without serious peril to the domestic constitution. Besides, slavery under certain restrictions offered many important advantages, to which regard must be paid under existing circumstances. The system of labor for daily wages was not yet established; so that when any one, through his own fault or through misfortune, was reduced so that he could not support himself and his family, servitude was the only means of providing for his necessities, the only way of escape from the temptation to open robbery or secret theft. And, further, as the most ancient Hebrew legislation did not recognize the punishment of imprisonment, when any one was found guilty of robbery or theft slavery was also a fitting means of chastisement, so that the thief who could not pay the pecuniary penalty might still be punished by the loss of his freedom. Under these circumstances the Mosaic legislation allowed slavery to exist provisionally; aiming at first to do away with all the inhumanity and harshness that characterized it in the other nations, and preparing for its complete abolition, in the first instance in the case of Hebrew slaves, by so limiting its duration and conditions that it hardly deserved to be called by the name of slavery. Mielziner.

The Hebrew slave might be held for six years only; in the seventh he was to be permitted his freedom. Rigorous exaction and harshness were distinctly and sternly forbidden. If a master by revengeful treatment inflicted serious bodily injury on the slave, such slave was to have his freedom (Ex. 21:26). Undue punishment was avenged by the judges (Ex. 21:20, 21). The slave might acquire property of his own, and might even amass enough to buy his own freedom. Slaves were to be free from all manner of work on the Sabbath day. They had a right to fruit which grew spontaneously during the Sabbatical year. They were to have their share of the feasts at the great national festivals. If they accepted freedom at the end of the sixth year, they were not to be sent away empty, but were to be furnished by their master, liberally and gladly, with a sufficiency wherewith to “start on their own account.” The idea of freedom was ever kept before them. They might not sell themselves for life to any one. They were the Lord’s freemen, and they were not to pervert the Divine thought by becoming life-long bondmen. When a foreign slave escaped from his master, the moment he touched the Hebrews’ soil he was a free man. C. C.

In matter of personal right the children of covenant were equal before God. While the ancient Roman laws say, “The master has power of life and death over his slave, and all which the slave earns belongs to the master,” both these marks of slavery were unknown in Israel. “They are my servants, which I brought out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen” (Lev. 25:42). “If thy brother be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant” (verse 39). Gerl. —As regards rest from labor and religious and social festivities, the Law was very specific in stipulating that the man-servant and the maidservant must share in all these equally with the son and the daughter. We see this in the law of the Sabbath; in the feast upon the second tithes (De. 12:17, 18); and in the great festivals of Pentecost and of Tabernacles (De. 16:11, 14). Thus they were put religiously and socially upon the same footing as children in the family. No ban of exclusion, no stigma of caste, could attach to their condition so long as these statutes were duly observed. H. C.

Lev. 25:48, 49. Any nigh of kin may redeem. The term Goel, though signifying Redeemer, has yet a more specific purport than anything conveyed by that English word or its equivalents in Greek and Latin or in any other language; for the idea was peculiar to the Hebrew. The kinsman-redeemer would be the nearest rendering of the original designation, but even this fails adequately to convey the deep significance of the Hebrew. A more exact definition would be, “a person related by blood, who by right of consanguinity lays claim to and redeems a person or thing, vindicates the rights involved or avenges the wrong sustained” (Glass). It is easy to perceive how the institution of the Goel must have been productive of important benefits to the Israelitish community; how it acted as a conservating power in the State, by binding together various interests, and particularly by offering to the weaker and poorer members protection against wrong, and against the necessities of parting with their personal liberties or their patrimonial possessions. But it is in its spiritual aspect that the matter chiefly deserves consideration. In this respect it was made the subject of so much solicitude in the Law; and the very name was assumed so frequently as a designation of the Divine Redeemer and of the relation which, as such, he sustained toward his people. D. M.

The Jubilee seems to have had typical reference: First. To the great time of release, the Gospel dispensation, when all who believe in

Christ Jesus are redeemed from the bondage of sin—repossess the favor and image of God, the only inheritance of the human soul, having all debts cancelled and the right of inheritance restored. To this the prophet seems to allude (Is. 26:13), and particularly ch. 61:1-3. Secondly. To the general resurrection. “It is,” says Parkhurst, “a lively prefiguration of the grand consummation of time, which will be introduced in like manner, by the trump of God (1 Cor. 15:52), when the children and heirs of God shall be delivered from all their forfeitures, and restored to the eternal inheritance allotted to them by their father; and thenceforth rest from their labors, and be supported in life and happiness by what the field of God shall supply.” That the Jubilee was proclaimed on the very day when the great annual atonement was made for the sins of the people proves that the great liberty, or redemption published under the Gospel could not take place till the great atonement, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, had been offered up! Through this sacrifice, the Jubilee declares, that the believer in Jesus who was in debt to God’s justice had his debt discharged and his sin forgiven; that he who had sold himself for nought, who was a bond-slave of sin and Satan, regains his liberty and becomes a son of God, through faith in His blood; and that he who by transgression had forfeited all right and title to the kingdom of God becomes an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. Heaven, his forfeited inheritance, is restored, for the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers; and thus redeemed from his debt, restored to his liberty, united to the heavenly family, and re-entitled to his inheritance, he goes on his way rejoicing till he enters the Paradise of his Maker, and is forever with the Lord. A. C.

Like the Sabbatical year, the Jubilee shadows out a state of permanent prosperity, happiness, joy, and glory, in the latter periods of this world’s history. Like many other features of the Levitical economy, its substance has never yet been realized. That is reserved for that blissful era announced by the seventh, or jubilee trumpet of the Apocalypse, when the grand consummation of all prophetic blessedness shall take place. Bush.

Lev. 25 39 And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. And as for thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they have begotten in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over another, with rigour. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family: after that he is sold he may be redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him: or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him

50 of his family may redeem him ; or if he be waxen rich, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee : and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years ; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him ; according unto his years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him : he shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not redeemed by these means, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he, and his children with him. For unto me the children of Israel are servants ; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt : I am the LORD your God.

De. 15 12 If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years ; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty : thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress : as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee : therefore I command thee this thing to-day. And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee ; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee ; then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou lettest him go free from thee ; for to the double of the hire of an hireling hath he served thee six years : and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.

De. 23 15 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a servant which is escaped from his master unto thee : he shall dwell with thee, in the midst of thee, in the place which he shall choose within one of thy gates, where it liketh him best ; thou shalt not oppress him.

[The special laws of Ezodus (text omitted) are referred to in the comment.]

Treatment of Slaves. Emancipation and its Consequent Arrangements.

Ex. 21 12 He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall surely be put to death. And 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. And if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile ; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

Nu. 35 16 But if he smote him with an instrument of iron, so that he died, he is a man-slayer : the manslayer shall surely be put to death. And if he smote him with a stone in the hand, whereby a man may die, and he died, he is a manslayer : the manslayer shall surely be put to death. Or if he smote him with a weapon of wood in the hand, whereby a man may die, and he died, he is a manslayer : the manslayer shall surely be put to death. The avenger of blood shall himself put the manslayer to death : when he meeteth him, he shall put him to death. And if he thrust him of hatred, or hurled at him, lying in wait, so that he died ; or in enmity smote him with his hand, that he died : he that smote him shall surely be put to death ; he is a manslayer : the avenger of blood shall put the manslayer to death, when he meeteth him.

30. Whoso killeth any person, the manslayer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses : but one witness shall not testify against any person that he die. Moreover ye shall take no ransom for the life of a manslayer, which is guilty of death : but he shall surely be put to death. And ye shall take no ransom for him that is fled to his city of refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are : for blood, it polluteth the land : and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. And thou shalt not defile the land which ye inhabit, in the midst of which I dwell : for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the children of Israel.

De. 19 11 But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die ; and he flee into one of these cities : then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.

No. 35 9 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and 10 say unto them, When ye pass over Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall appoint you 11 cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the manslayer which killeth any person unwittingly 12 may flee thither. And the cities shall be unto you for refuge from the avenger; that the man- 13 slayer die not, until he stand before the congregation for judgement. And the cities which 14 ye shall give shall be for you six cities of refuge. Ye shall give three cities beyond Jordan, 15 and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan; they shall be cities of refuge. For the children of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, shall these six cities 22 be for refuge: that every one that killeth any person unwittingly may flee thither. But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or hurled upon him any thing without lying in wait, 23 or with any stone, whereby a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, so that he 24 died, and he was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: then the congregation shall judge 25 between the smiter and the avenger of blood according to these judgements: and the congregation shall deliver the manslayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall dwell therein 26 until the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil. But if the man- 27 slayer shall at any time go beyond the border of his city of refuge, whither he fleeth; and the avenger of blood find him without the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood 28 slay the manslayer; he shall not be guilty of blood: because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest: but after the death of the high priest the 29 manslayer shall return into the land of his possession. And these things shall be for a statute of judgement unto you throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

De. 19 1 When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations, whose land the LORD thy God 2 giveth thee, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their cities, and in their houses; thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth 3 thee to possess it. Thou shalt prepare thee the way, and divide the borders of thy land, which the LORD thy God causeth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every manslayer may 4 flee thither. And this is the case of the manslayer, which shall flee thither and live: whoso 5 killeth his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in time past; as when a man goeth into the forest with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour, that he die, 6 he shall flee unto one of these cities and live: lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and smite him mortally, 7 whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past. Wherefore 8 I command thee, saying, Thou shalt separate three cities for thee. And if the LORD thy God enlarge thy border, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, and give thee all the land which he 9 promised to give unto thy fathers; if thou shalt keep all this commandment to do it, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt 10 thou add three cities more for thee, besides these three: that innocent blood be not shed in the midst of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee.

[Omitted text indicated in the comment.]

NOTE.—The two special topics—the sanctuary for accidental or justifiable homicide, and the purgation of a community from the guilt of an undisclosed murder—although belonging in form to the class of ceremonial laws, are placed in this connection, because they relate directly to man-slaying, and because in a comparison with previous details touching the death-penalty, they find clearer apprehension and more effec- tive impression. B.

The Jewish Law taught the great principles of moral duty in the Decalogue: it enjoined love to God and man; impressed the deepest con- victi n that God required not merely external observances, but heartfelt piety, well-regulated desires, and active benevolence: it taught that sacrifice would not pardon without repentance, nor repentance without reformation and resti- tution: it described circumcision, and there- fore every other legal rite, as designed to typify and inculcate internal holiness: it represented the love of God as the practical principle, stim- ulating to the cultivation of purity, mercy, and truth: and it enforced all by sanctions most likely to act on the minds of such people as the Israelites were. If we examine its penal code, it punished capitally idolatry, with all its train of profanation and crimes; adultery and im- purity in all its pollutions; murder; obstinate disobedience to parents; presumptuous defiance of the Divine law; and resistance to the supreme authority of the State. It provided with great wisdom for the trial of those who were guilty of manslaughter: it punished inferior offences with mildness and lenity: it protected the slave as well as the freeman. In short, the whole scheme and universal spirit of the penal code and judicial system were strictly conformable to the religion that was taught and to the moral principles that were inculcated. Graves.

It is here enacted and provided, consonant to natural equity, that wilful murder should be punished with death, and in that case no sanctuary should be allowed, no ransom taken, nor any commutation of the punishment accepted; the murderer shall surely be put to death. It was an ancient law, consonant to the law of nature, that whoso sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed (Gen. 9: 6). Since the murderer cannot restore the life he has wrongfully taken away, his own must be exacted in lieu of it, to satisfy the law and the justice of a nation, and to be a warning to all others not to do likewise. It is here said, and it is well worthy the consideration of all magistrates and States, that blood defiles not only the conscience of the murderer, but also the land in which it is shed. And it is added that the land cannot be cleansed from the blood of the murdered but by the blood of the murderer (verse 33). H.

The law discriminated with the utmost care and wisdom between real murder and homicide, more or less justifiable. A special law provided cities of refuge. Another special law met the case of murder by unknown hands. In-excusable carelessness causing injury or death was punished. Personal injuries not fatal were specially punished by statute. But real murder was punished capitally. The law is briefly stated in Ex. 21: 12, 14, and Lev. 24: 17, 21. More fully it is given in Nu. 35: 16-21 and De. 19: 11-13, in connection with the ordinance respecting the cities of refuge. These passages reaffirm and amplify the doctrine of the law as given to Noah and to the repeopled world; “And surely your blood of your lives [life-blood] will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of every man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” Human life is sacred, and God protects it under the sternest possible penalties—nothing less than the life of the murderer. That God intended this law for the whole race, for the entire repeopled world from and after Noah, is too plain to be denied or even doubted. It is not easy to see how another word could be said to make this more plain. The Law of Sinai and the code given through Moses are intensely emphatic, indeed perfectly decisive. According to this code, real murder must be proven: by previous hatred and enmity (De. 19: 11); by evidence of “lying in wait” (Nu. 35: 20); by the sort of instrument used (Nu. 35: 16-18), a weapon large enough to fill the hand and deal a death-blow. H. C.

The crime of deliberate and wilful murder is a crime at which human nature starts, and which is punished almost universally throughout the world with death. The words of the Mosaical Law (over and above the general precept of Noah, that “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”) are very emphatical in prohibiting the pardon of murderers: “moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer.” Blackstone.

De. 19: 13. Thine eye shall not pity. There are some situations in which her presence would be out of place, her action injurious. But righteousness must never be absent. The very atmosphere in God’s kingdom is penetrated with her vital breath. Her sceptre is the sceptre of God, and exerts a potent influence over every department of human life. All true prosperity is the fruit of righteousness. It cannot go well with any nation, nor with any man, until guilt is put away. Even compassion for others must be a righteous compassion. D. D.

Have we as citizens pondered as we ought that solemn warning implied in the words, “Thine eye shall not pity him but thou shalt put away innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee?” “So shall ye not pollute the land wherein ye are; for blood it defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it.” Remember that this law of God levels its prohibitions against not only wilful murder, suicide, duelling, and unlawful wars; nay, not only against all those callings, customs, practices that militate against the safety of human life; and not only declares judgment against those who violate the law themselves, but against the society which fails to execute judgment against the reckless shedding of blood. Nor does it matter from what causes this unfaithfulness of society may spring. It may be from the breaking away of society from its moorings by the upheaving of its social institutions and the outbursting of a reckless mob-violence which fears not God nor regards man. Or it may be a pseudo-philanthropism affecting a horror of anything but a perverted law of love that knows no eternal truth and righteousness to be vindicated by either God or man; and therefore denies the right of society itself to inflict death. Or it may be a breaking down of family authority under the great law “Honor thy father and thy mother,” which turns the family government itself—God’s own appointed seed-plant for the rearing of citizens for the State, and members of the kingdom of Christ—into a hotbed for the rearing of profligates, assassins, and murderers of every phase. No matter what the cause of the failure; still that great law stands written as in letters of flame—“The land cannot be cleansed of the blood shed therein but BY THE BLOOD OF HIM THAT SHED IT.” S. R.

Ex. 21: 13. This expression, respecting a man being killed by accident without any ill intention on the part of the slayer, is remarkable. It signifies that even those things which to us seem the most casual and merely accidental, in respect of God are really providential, and could not happen but by His (for wise reasons) permitting them to be done. S. Clarke.

Nu. 35: 12, 19. The avenger of blood. The Hebrew, goel, signifies a redeemer; and because the right of redemption of estates belonged to the nearest kinsman, the word imports such a kinsman here. Bp. Kidder.

The original import of the term goel is uncertain. The very obscurity of its etymology testifies to the antiquity of the office which it denotes. That office rested on the principle of Gen. 9: 6, “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” In an unsettled state of society the execution of justice was necessarily left in private hands. The lowest stage of national development is where every one assumes the right of avenging alleged misdeeds at his discretion; and it was therefore already an upward step when prevailing custom restricted this right to certain persons, who, although wielding no public authority, were yet invested, ipso facto, for the time being, with a public character. It was in such a spirit that the unwritten code of the east conceded to the nearest kinsman of a murdered man the right of avenging the blood that had been shed. He was permitted to kill the murderer, without notice, openly or secretly, wheresoever he might find him. Such rude justice necessarily involved grave evils. It gave no opportunity to the person charged with crime of establishing his innocence; it recognized no distinction between murder, manslaughter, and accidental homicide; it perpetuated family blood-feuds, the avenger of blood being liable to be treated in his turn as a murderer by the kinsman of the man whom he had slain. These grievances could not be removed as long as there was no central government strong enough to vindicate the law; but they might be mitigated; and to do this was the object of the institution in the text. Among the Arab tribes, who are under the control of no central authority, the practice of blood-revenge subsists in full force to the present day. The law of the Koran limits the right of demanding satisfaction to cases in which a man has been unjustly smitten, and forbids the kinsman of the deceased to avenge his blood on any other than the actual murderer. But these restrictions are generally disregarded in practice by the Arabs. Espin.

The law demanded blood for blood. But it transferred the exaction of the penalty from private revenge and committed it to the judicial authority. To effect this, it had to struggle with an inveterate though barbarous usage, which still prevails among the Arabian tribes. By a point of honor, the nearest of kin is bound to revenge the death of his relation: he is his Goel, or blood-avenger. He makes no inquiry, allows no pause. Whether the deceased had been slain on provocation, by accident, or of deliberate malice, death can only be atoned by the blood of the homicide. To mitigate the evils of an usage too firmly established to be rooted out, Moses appointed certain cities of refuge, conveniently situated. If a homicide could escape to one of these, he was safe till a judicial investigation took place. If the homicide was justifiable or accidental he was bound to reside within the sanctuary for a certain period. Milman.

Nu. 35: 22. If the killing was not voluntary, nor done designedly, if without enmity, or lying in wait (verse 22), not seeing him, or seeking his harm (verse 23), which our law calls chance-medley, or homicide through misfortune, in this case there were cities of refuge appointed for the man-slayer to flee to. H.—9-15, 24-29. Six cities in Palestine—three on each side of the Jordan—were selected in such convenient geographical position that from any point of the whole country the man-slayer might make the nearest one within less than one day’s run. All these were cities of the Levites; hence the leading men of the city would be competent to hold a preliminary investigation. The man-slayer fled for his life to the nearest of these cities. The legal authorities there protected him against the Goel—the blood-avenger. The elders of his own city, if the case seemed to demand it, might send and fetch him; try him, and deliver him up to the blood-avenger; or remand him back to his city of refuge. Thus this city shielded him against sudden and indiscriminate vengeance, and secured for him a trial before the congregation or elders of his own city. If his case was proved to be homicide, he must remain within the city of refuge till the death of the high-priest, after which the avenger’s right to take his life (outside the refuge-city) ceased and he could go at large in safety. This provision affixed a limit to his quasi-imprisonment. Perhaps it was also significant of the pardon for sin provided for in the death of our Great High-Priest. If the man-slayer allowed himself to be caught by the blood-avenger outside his city when he should be within it, the avenger might take his life with impunity. H. C.

These laws of Moses were perfectly wise: the man who involuntarily killed another was innocent, but he was obliged to be taken away from before the eyes of the relatives of the deceased; Moses, therefore, appointed an asylum for such unfortunate persons; great criminals deserved not a place of safety, and they had none: if persons who had committed manslaughter had been driven out of the country, as was customary among the Greeks, there was reason to fear they would worship strange gods. All these considerations made them establish cities of refuge, where they might remain until the death of the high-priest. Montesquieu.

De. 19:3. Thou shalt prepare thee a way. The design of the injunction here was that every facility should be afforded to the fugitive to escape to the place of refuge. In later times, it was enacted that the roads leading to these cities should be repaired every year in the month Adar, and every obstruction removed. W. L. A.

Here is a great deal of good gospel couched under the type and figure of the cities of refuge; and to them the apostle seems to allude, when he speaks of our flying for refuge to the hope set before us (Heb. 6:18). There were several cities of refuge, and they were so appointed in several parts of the country that the man-slayer, wherever he dwelt in the land of Israel, might in a day reach one or other of them; so, though there is but one Christ appointed for our Refuge, yet wherever we are He is a Refuge at hand, a very present help, for the word is nigh us and Christ in the word. The man-slayer was safe in any of these cities; so in Christ believers that fly to him and rest in him are protected from the wrath of God and the curse of the Law. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). H.

NOTE.—The text discriminated, indicated, and explained in the comment.

The spirit which breathes in the Civil Code of the Jews is the spirit of the moral law; and those enactments impress our minds with a deep sense of their equity and humanity. The Jewish Code forbade idolatry, witchcraft, and the profanation of the name of God. It forbade disrespectful conduct to parents, rulers, and the aged. It forbade all polluting and perverse conduct. Surely we see here how sound policy unites and incorporates in one friendly system all that is sacred in religion, just in social regulations, and pure in morals. There is a Divine voice addressing us in these laws: “Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” Jos Jones.

These different regulations are as remarkable for their justice and prudence as for their humanity. Their great tendency is to show the valuableness of human life and the necessity of having peace and good understanding in every neighborhood; and they possess that quality which should be the object of all good and wholesome laws, the prevention of crimes. A. C.

Is it possible to suppose that a man who was forty years in the desert and forty years a subordinate in Pharaoh’s court should have been able to invent laws so just, reasonable, and fair, in comparison of which those of Solon are extremely imperfect and poor? Is it possible to account for all this in any other way than that God inspired Moses so to teach? J. C.

Theft and Burglary—Penalties.

It is here to be noted that the distinction of intentional or unintentional runs through the whole of these enactments, and modifies the degree of guilt and the amount of the penalty. M.—In the laws which follow respecting injuries inflicted, the great principle enforced is that of retaliation, which lies at the foundation of all judicial punishment. The criminal has violated the order of God in the life and property of his people, and that order must be restored again in him by recompense made. Such recompense extends, according to this original law of right, to the smallest particular—“An eye for an eye,” etc.—in which, however, according to the analogy of all other legislations, it is supposed that the injured party may remit the retributory punishment, or receive restitution in some other way; and thus it holds good of these, as of all similar Divine and human laws, that the general principle is laid down in certain definite plain examples, which principle, legal usage, and custom extended to all similar cases, and more clearly explained. Gerl.

Ex. 21 : 18, 19. Injury from personal contention. If the smitten man die not but “rise again and walk abroad upon his staff,” the smiter “shall pay for the loss of his time and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.”

Ex. 21 : 20, 21, 26, 27. Injuries to servants. For smiting to death, the master “shall be surely punished.” For smiting out a servant’s eye or tooth, “he shall let the slave go free.” B.—The superiority, which he has improperly abused, is taken from the master; and in compensation for the injury, liberty, which is almost half of life, is given to the male or female slave. In consideration that it was his slave, the master is treated more leniently, when the severity of the punishment is thus mitigated; while in compensation for his loss the slave receives what is more advantageous to him—viz., that being set free he should not be exposed to another’s cruelty. Calv.

Ex. 21 : 22. Special injury to a woman with child. If she lose the child, and yet no other mischief follow, the injurer “shall be surely fined, as the judges determine.” But otherwise the law of retaliation is to be rigidly enforced, of life for life. In this connection this law is first announced. Its full treatment will be found further on in this section. B.

Ex. 21 : 28-32. Injuries by beasts and penalties of the owner. If an ox gore a man. Even an ox which had gored a man to death, and by parity of reason any other animal that had killed a person by pushing, biting, or kicking, was to be stoned; not to punish the beast but the owner, and so oblige him to be careful in preventing his oxen from injuring his neighbors. The flesh of the goring ox could not be eaten, a prohibition which served to keep up a wholesome horror of murder, at the same time that it punished the man by the total loss of his beast. E. C. W.

29. God proceeds further, condemning the master of the ox himself to death if he had been previously admonished to beware; for such a warning takes away the pretext of ignorance; and to give free outlet to dangerous beasts is equivalent to compassing men’s death. He who knowingly and wilfully exposes the life of his brother to peril is justly accounted his murderer. 30. The exception which is here added permits the judges to distinguish the nature of the offence. Calv.

Injuries to Cattle.

The lex talionis, or law of like for like, afterward prevailed among the Greeks and Romans. Among the latter it constituted a part of the twelve tables, so famous in antiquity; but the punishment was afterward changed to a pecuniary fine, to be levied at the discretion of the Prætor. It prevails less or more in most civilized countries, and is fully acted upon in the Canon Law in reference to all calumniators: “Calumniator, si in accusatione defecerit, talionem recipiat.” Nothing, however, of this kind was left to private revenge; the magistrate awarded the punishment when the fact was proved. Otherwise the lex talionis would have utterly destroyed the peace of society, and have sowed the seeds of hatred, revenge, and all uncharitableness. A. C.

The principle of the lex talionis, “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” is here laid down as the rule for magistrates administering justice between man and man, not as the law for private, social life, as implying the lawfulness of private revenge. It is in fact but the same principle which in another form we have embodied in our own civil constitutions, that “excessive punishments shall not be inflicted.” The lex talionis is in fact the only true and reasonable rule of retributive justice as administered under law. S. R.—Retaliation is the converse of the “golden rule.” It is giving back to a person his breach of that rule to see how he likes it. It is a rough method of teaching rude, selfish souls that there is retribution in all selfish practices. It is morally right that those who do to others as they do not wish others to do to them should have precisely their own paid back to them. It is simple justice. Edgar.

The law of retaliation has been objected to as productive of hatred and revenge. It might be so if left to the exercise of private individuals, instead of being, as it really was, a rule of official judgment, by which to apportion the punishment due to personal injuries. Its vindication is found in the fact that it is based on natural equity, and is “an eternal law in the government of the world.” It accords with the usages of all ancient nations not only the rude and barbarous, but also the civilized, as the Athenians, and in the Roman laws of the twelve tables. The Law as it stands in the Mosaic Code is not to be regarded merely as the declaration of the general principle that a wrong-doer is bound to make suitable reparation for the wrong done—a principle without which society could not exist—but as announcing the fundamental nature of punishment. D. M.—A juster reverence for personal security and a more comprehensive economy of human life have led to a return toward the Mosaic jurisprudence. It is utterly vain to trump up a philosophy of punishment in which the principle of retribution shall have no place. Whatever may be said for the rival theories, it is the idea of retaliation which most readily presents itself to the mind of the criminal, and which justifies his sentence in the eyes of the public. London Times.

The law does not peremptorily command an injured person to avail himself of the right of retaliation, without any alternative. It only fixes the punishment to which the author of an injury must submit, if he cannot compound matters with the injured party. The law, as it stands in the Mosaic Code, is to be regarded as a mere declaration of the general principle, that whoever has done an injury to another is bound to make suitable reparation for the wrong which he has committed—a principle essential to the safety and good order of society—a principle, indeed, without which society could not exist. But even if interpreted and administered literally, how favorably does it compare, on the score of liberality, with what was at no distant period the law of our British ancestors! It is not so very long since both the theory and practice of British jurisprudence might have been expressed not in the Hebrew formulary of “an eye for an eye,” but in such maxims as

“a man for a sheep,” “a man for a guinea,” nay, “a man for a twelve-pence-farthing!”

It has often been alleged that Christ made war upon the lex talionis as of more than doubtful morality, and thus assumed an attitude of direct hostility to the Law of Moses. But the persons addressed by Moses and by Christ belonged to distinct classes. Moses speaks to the perpetrator of the injury, and tells him that he was bound to give “eye for eye and tooth for tooth—” that is, to make satisfaction for wrongs and injuries committed by him. Christ addresses the injured party, and forbids him to give vent to his vindictive feeling. E. C. W.—The murderer is to be punished, or he who has maimed a member of his brother; but it is not therefore lawful, if you have unjustly suffered violence, to indulge in wrath or hatred, so as to render evil for evil. Galv.

If men reject the Divine mercy, there is no other alternative but strict justice. And strict justice means retaliation. It is giving back to man what he dares to give to God. If man refuses God’s love, and instead of accepting and returning it gives to God hate, then it is only right, eternally right, that he should receive what he gives. God cannot but hate as utterly abominable the soul that hates him who is essential love. Wrath is the “love pain of God,” as Schöberlein has called it. It is forced on him by the action of his creatures. They have had the opportunity of love, but since they refuse it, they must be visited by wrath. Edgar.—What do these words mean: “He that transgressed Moses’s Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God?” The only difference between the judgments of the Old Testament and those of the New is, that the latter are more terribly severe in proportion as the privileges are greater. And whether in the Old or in the New, the denunciation of judgment is an expression of love; for it is the warning voice of affection, telling of the coming danger, and beseeching those exposed to it to “flee from the wrath to come.” J. M. G.

Enumeration of these crimes. Ex. 21:15, 17; Lev. 20:9; De. 21:18-21, refer to smiting or cursing father or mother, and to a rebellious and drunken son.

Ex. 21:16; De. 24:7, to stealing and selling a man of Israel.

Ex. 21:29, to the owner of a goring ox known to have killed before.

De. 17:12, to the man who disobeys the decisions of the appointed priest or judge.

Nu. 15:32-36. The Sabbath-breaker in the Wilderness.

Lev. 24:10-16, 23. The blaspheming son of Shelomith.

In addition to these are the crimes (included in Sections 152, 153) connected with Idolatry and Fornication. B.

Complaint has been made against Moses on account of the number of crimes made capital in his code. But great injustice has been done him in this particular. The crimes punishable with death by his laws were either of a deep moral malignity or such as were aimed against the very being of the State. It will be found, too, on examination, that there were but four classes of capital offences known to his laws—treason, murder, deliberate and gross abuse of parents, and the more unnatural and horrid crimes arising out of the sexual relation. And all the specifications under these classes amounted to only seventeen; whereas, it is not two hundred years since the criminal code of Great Britain numbered one hundred and forty-eight crimes punishable with death—many of them of a trivial nature, as petty thefts and trespasses upon property. But “no injury simply affecting property could draw down upon an Israelite an ignominious death. The Mosaic Law respected moral depravity more than gold. Moral turpitude, and the most atrocious expressions of moral turpitude—these were the objects of its unsleeping severity.” E. C. W.

Of crimes against parents, the statutes of Moses specify smiting and cursing (Ex. 21:15, 17); the penalty in both cases, death. The precept forbidding to curse a parent is repeated impressively (Lev. 20:9). This crime stands in the list of those that are anathematized in De. 27:16. H. C.—If a Jew smote his neighbor, the Law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a parent, it struck the writer dead. The parental relation was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safeguards. “Honor thy father and thy mother,” stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and throughout the Bible the parental state is God’s favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family. In this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a man, but a parent—a distinction made sacred by God. He hath cursed his father or his mother. This is repeated as by a kind of note of exclamation, to aggravate the enormity of the crime. He shall be put to death, for he hath cursed his father or his mother! Such a monster must surely die. Bush.

De. 21:18-21. Afterward, obstinate incorrigible disobedience to parents also came under the list of crimes worthy of death. The reason is to be found in that divinely hallowed reverence toward parents which is implanted in us by God’s will, whereby any injury by deed, or a cursing of parents, is a violation in their persons of God’s majesty. Gerl.—The case is supposed of a son incurably stubborn, rebellious, gluttonous, and drunken, upon whom parental chastisement is unavailing. The Law very considerably provides that his father and his mother shall lay hold of him and bring him before the elders of his city unto its gates (i.e., into open court), and there, as a public example and warning, the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die:—“So shalt thou put evil away from you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.” Parental love and partiality would guarantee this law against abuse. It is pleasant to note that no case of its execution is on record. Perhaps the severity of the Law forestalled its violation. The spirit of this precept is so fully in harmony with the Book of Proverbs that we naturally expect to find it there. (See Prov. 20:20 and 30:11, 17.) H. C.

The penalty of such crimes was death; but the power of inflicting this was not among the Hebrews—as among the Greeks and Romans—left with the father; the punishment could be inflicted only by the community, with the sanction of the magistrate. A Hebrew parent might chastise his child with severity, but not so as to affect his life (Prov. 19:18, “Chasten thy son while there is hope, but raise not thy soul [let not thy passion rise so high as] to slay him”). While parental authority was sacredly preserved, a check was by the Law imposed on hasty passion. W. L. A.—The supreme and impartial law took under its charge the morals, the health, as well as the persons and the property of the whole people. It entered into the domestic circle, and regulated all the reciprocal duties of parent and child, husband and wife, as well as of master and servant. Among the nomad tribes, from which the Hebrews descended, the father was an arbitrary sovereign in his family as under the Roman law, with the power of life and death. Moses, while he maintained the dignity and salutary control, limited the abuse of the parental authority. From the earliest period the child was under the protection of the Law. The father had no power of disinheriting his sons; the first-born received by law two portions, the rest shared equally. On the other hand, the Decalogue enforced obedience and respect to parents under the strongest sanctions. To strike or to curse a parent was a capital offence. On parricide the law, as if, like that of the Romans, it refused to contemplate its possibility, preserved a sacred silence. Milman

The mention of a trial implies that the son was heard in his defence, so as to clear himself of the crime if he was not guilty of it. Especially when he was to be stoned by the whole people it was necessary that he should be first convicted; and on this ground he was brought forth publicly that he might be allowed to plead his cause. Cole.—Undoubtedly in thus enforcing filial obedience, the Jewish Law laid the foundation of every virtue. He who despises parental instruction, tramples on parental authority, and feels no gratitude for parental affection in his earlier years, will probably as his passions strengthen and his depraved habits grow inveterate trample on the authority of laws both human and Divine, and requite with ingratitude all the benefits which man can confer, and all the blessings which the Divinity bestows Graves.

Man-stealing was punished with death. “He that stealth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 21:16). The Law as recited in De. 21:7 applies to a man stealing one of his brethren of the children of Israel. As stated in Ex. 21:16 it is universal, with no limitation. Stealing a man is the crime. This statute struck at the very root of real slavery. Both stealing and selling contemplate property—assume the fact of a property value. The spirit of the Law is—Men shall never be degraded into merchandise. H. C.

33. If a man shall open a pit.** The statutes of this Divine Code were so framed as to guard against mischief and injury occasioned by a culpable negligence. The pits or wells from which water was procured in those countries, though usually covered when not in use, yet were very liable to be left open, thus exposing to the utmost peril the lives or limbs of the animals that chanced to fall into them.

35. If one man’s ox hurt another’s.** Where cattle fought and one killed another, the owners were to adjust the matter by selling the live ox and dividing the price equally between them, and also by making an equal division of the dead ox. But if the animal was known to be vicious and his owner had not kept him in, it was just that he should suffer for his negligence, and was consequently required to give up his live ox and take the dead one. Bush.