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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 21:12 - 21:12
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Still higher than personal liberty, however, is life itself, the right of existence and personality; and the infliction of injury upon this was not only prohibited, but to be followed by punishment corresponding to the crime. The principle of retribution, jus talionis, which is the only one that embodies the idea of justice, lies at the foundation of these threats.
Exo 21:12-13
A death-blow was to be punished with death (cf. Gen 9:6; Lev 24:17). “He that smiteth a man and (so that) he die (whether on the spot or directly afterwards did not matter), he shall be put to death.” This general rule is still further defined by a distinction being drawn between accidental and intentional killing. “But whoever has not lain in wait (for another's life), and God has caused it to come to his hand” (to kill the other); i.e., not only if he did not intend to kill him, but did not even cherish the intention of smiting him, or of doing him harm from hatred and enmity (Num 35:16-23; Deu 19:4-5), and therefore did so quite unawares, according to a dispensation of God, which is generally called an accident because it is above our comprehension. For such a man God would appoint places of refuge, where he should be protected against the avenger of blood. (On this point, see Num 35:9.).
Exo 21:14-17
“But he who acts presumptuously against his neighbour, to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from Mine altar that he may die.” These words are not to be understood as meaning, that only intentional and treacherous killing was to be punished with death; but, without restricting the general rule in Exo 21:12, they are to be interpreted from their antithesis to Exo 21:13, as signifying that even the altar of Jehovah was not to protect a man who had committed intentional murder, and carried out his purpose with treachery. (More on this point at Num 35:16.) By this regulation, the idea, which was common to the Hebrews and many other nations, that the altar as God's abode afforded protection to any life that was in danger from men, was brought back to the true measure of its validity, and the place of expiation for sins of weakness (cf. Lev 4:2; Lev 5:15, Lev 5:18; Num 15:27-31) was prevented from being abused by being made a place of refuge for criminals who were deserving of death. Maltreatment of a father and mother through striking (Exo 21:15), man-stealing (Exo 21:16), and cursing parents (Exo 21:17, cf. Lev 20:9), were all to be placed on a par with murder, and punished in the same way. By the “smiting” (הִכָּה) of parents we are not to understand smiting to death, for in that case וָמֵת would be added as in Exo 21:12, but any kind of maltreatment. The murder of parents is not mentioned at all, as not likely to occur and hardly conceivable. The cursing (קַלֵּל as in Gen 12:3) of parents is placed on a par with smiting, because it proceeds from the same disposition; and both were to be punished with death, because the majesty of God was violated in the persons of the parents (cf. Exo 20:12). Man-stealing was also no less a crime, being a sin against the dignity of man, and a violation of the image of God. For אישׁ “a man,” we find in Deu 24:7, נֶפֶשׁ “a soul,” by which both man and woman are intended, and the still more definite limitation, “of his brethren of the children of Israel.” The crime remained the same whether he had sold him (the stolen man), or whether he was still found in his hand. (For וְ - וְ as a sign of an alternative in the linking together of short sentences, see Pro 29:9, and Ewald, §361.) This is the rendering adopted by most of the earlier translators, and we get no intelligent sense if we divide the clauses thus: “and sell him so that he is found in his hand.”