Exodus 22:15

It came for his (i.e. 'its'; see on Leviticus 25:5) hire] RM 'it is reckoned in its hire.' The owner is understood to have taken the risk of injury into account in fixing the price of hire.

16-31. Miscellaneous Laws.

16, 17. Endow her] RV rightly, 'pay a dowry for her': e.g. to her father. The dowry was not the portion brought by the wife into the husband's house, but the price paid by the bridegroom to the father or brothers of the bride, by way, it would seem, of compensation to the bride's family for the loss of her services: cp. Genesis 34:12, also Genesis 29:18. Seeing that among the Hebrews, as among the Arabs at the present day, a woman who has been unchaste has almost no chance of marriage, the seducer, it is here enacted, must marry her, or, if the father object, make good the dowry. In Deuteronomy 22:29 the dowry is fixed at fifty shekels. The seduction of a betrothed damsel is punishable with death: see on Deuteronomy 22:28.