Exodus · 36 verses
Exodus 21
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What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A servant who loves his master, wife, and children may refuse the seventh-year freedom, have his ear pierced at the door, and serve for life.
Service, chosen and soldvv. 1–11
The ordinances begin with a freedom that arrives on schedule: six years of service, then release in the seventh. Yet household arrangements make the departure uneven. A man may leave with the wife he brought, while a wife given to him by his master and the children she bears remain behind. If he refuses that arithmetic because he loves his master and family, the matter goes before the judges, and an awl settles it at the door or doorpost. A daughter sold as a servant has a different rule: she is not released as the menservants are. If her master breaks faith with her, she may be redeemed; if he chooses her for his son, she is to be treated as a daughter. And if he takes another wife, the first wife is still owed food, clothing, and marital rights—three things which, if withheld, send her away without payment.
Strikes, deaths, and injuriesvv. 12–27
The rules then turn from household service to blows. Deliberate killing receives death, while the man who did not lie in wait is given a place to flee. Striking a parent, cursing a parent, and kidnapping another man are also punished by death, with no distinction made between selling the captive and keeping him. In a quarrel, a man who leaves another bedridden must compensate him and see him healed if he eventually rises and walks with his staff. A servant-owner who strikes a servant and kills him is punished; if the servant survives a day or two, the owner is not, because the servant is his property. A pregnant woman caught in the quarrel brings a fine if no further injury follows, but serious injury produces the famously compact exchange of life, eye, tooth, hand, foot, burn, wound, and stripe. For a servant, though, a blinded eye or knocked-out tooth opens the cage: the compensation is freedom.
The ox with a reputationvv. 28–36
At last the dangerous animal takes centre stage. An ox that kills is stoned, though its owner is not responsible—unless the ox was known to gore and the owner failed to restrain it. Then both the animal and its owner face the death rule, unless the owner redeems his life with the demanded payment. The same rule applies when the victim is a son or daughter; an ox that gores a servant costs thirty shekels to the servant's master. The remaining cases are tidier but no less practical: an uncovered pit makes its owner pay for the fallen ox or donkey and keep the carcass, while two ox-owners divide the proceeds when one ox kills another—unless the guilty ox had already acquired its alarming habit, in which case full compensation is due.
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Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Exod 21:1“These are the ordinances that you are to set before them:
Exod 21:2If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything.
Exod 21:3If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him.
Exod 21:4If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
Exod 21:5But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’
Exod 21:6then his master is to bring him before the judges. And he shall take him to the door or doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he shall serve his master for life.
Exod 21:7And if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as the menservants do.
Exod 21:8If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who had designated her for himself, he must allow her to be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, since he has broken faith with her.
Exod 21:9And if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her as with a daughter.
Exod 21:10If he takes another wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, or marital rights of his first wife.
Exod 21:11If, however, he does not provide her with these three things, she is free to go without monetary payment.
Exod 21:12Whoever strikes and kills a man must surely be put to death.
Exod 21:13If, however, he did not lie in wait, but God allowed it to happen, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.
Exod 21:14But if a man schemes and acts willfully against his neighbor to kill him, you must take him away from My altar to be put to death.
Exod 21:15Whoever strikes his father or mother must surely be put to death.
Exod 21:16Whoever kidnaps another man must be put to death, whether he sells him or the man is found in his possession.
Exod 21:17Anyone who curses his father or mother must surely be put to death.
Exod 21:18If men are quarreling and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist, and he does not die but is confined to bed,
Exod 21:19then the one who struck him shall go unpunished, as long as the other can get up and walk around outside with his staff. Nevertheless, he must compensate the man for his lost work and see that he is completely healed.
Exod 21:20If a man strikes his manservant or maidservant with a rod, and the servant dies by his hand, he shall surely be punished.
Exod 21:21However, if the servant gets up after a day or two, the owner shall not be punished, since the servant is his property.
Exod 21:22If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows.
Exod 21:23But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life—
Exod 21:24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exod 21:25burn for burn, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe.
Exod 21:26If a man strikes and blinds the eye of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the eye.
Exod 21:27And if he knocks out the tooth of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth.
Exod 21:28If an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox must surely be stoned, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall not be held responsible.
Exod 21:29But if the ox has a habit of goring, and its owner has been warned yet does not restrain it, and it kills a man or woman, then the ox must be stoned and its owner must also be put to death.
Exod 21:30If payment is demanded of him instead, he may redeem his life by paying the full amount demanded of him.
Exod 21:31If the ox gores a son or a daughter, it shall be done to him according to the same rule.
Exod 21:32If the ox gores a manservant or maidservant, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of that servant, and the ox must be stoned.
Exod 21:33If a man opens or digs a pit and fails to cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,
Exod 21:34the owner of the pit shall make restitution; he must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his.
Exod 21:35If a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they must sell the live one and divide the proceeds; they also must divide the dead animal.
Exod 21:36But if it was known that the ox had a habit of goring, yet its owner failed to restrain it, he shall pay full compensation, ox for ox, and the dead animal will be his.’’
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 196 passages were voted onto 28 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 16Deuteronomy 24:7If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you.
- 12Genesis 9:6Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.
- 161 Timothy 1:10for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
- 1Deuteronomy 4:14At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you the statutes and ordinances you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.
- 2Deuteronomy 15:12–15If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.
- 6Deuteronomy 15:17then take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he will become your servant for life. And treat your maidservant the same way.
- 12Leviticus 24:17And if a man takes the life of anyone else, he must surely be put to death.
- 12Matthew 26:52“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
- 13Joshua 20:2–9“Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses,
- 17Proverbs 20:20Whoever curses his father or mother, his lamp will be extinguished in deepest darkness.
- 22Deuteronomy 22:18–19Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him.
- 24Deuteronomy 19:21You must show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.
- 24Matthew 7:2For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
- 12Numbers 35:30–31If anyone kills a person, the murderer is to be put to death on the testimony of the witnesses. But no one is to be put to death based on the testimony of a lone witness.
- 131 Samuel 24:18And you have declared this day how you have treated me well, for when the LORD delivered me into your hand, you did not kill me.
- 141 Kings 2:28–34When the news reached Joab, who had conspired with Adonijah but not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of the LORD and took hold of the horns of the altar.
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