Exodus 21:1

CHAPTER XXI

Laws concerning servants. They shall serve for only seven

years, 1, 2.

If a servant brought a wife to servitude with him, both should go

out free on the seventh year, 3.

If his master had given him a wife, and she bore him children, he

might go out free an the seventh year, but his wife and children

must remain, as the property of the master, 4.

If, through love to his master, wife, and children, he did not

choose to avail himself of the privilege granted by the law, of

going out free on the seventh year, his ear was to be bored to the

door post with an awl, as an emblem of his being attached to the

family for ever, 5, 6.

Laws concerning maid-servants, betrothed to their masters or to

the sons of their masters, 7-11.

Laws concerning battery and murder, 12-15.

Concerning men-stealing, 16.

Concerning him that curses his parents, 17.

Of strife between man and man, 18, 19;

between a master and his servants, 20, 21.

Of injuries done to women in pregnancy, 22.

The LEX TALIONIS, or law of like, 23-25.

for injuries done to servants, by which they gain the right of

freedom, 26, 27.

Laws concerning the ox which has gored men, 28-32.

Of the pit left uncovered, into which a man or a beast has

fallen, 33, 34.

Laws concerning the ox that kills another, 35, 36.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXI

Verse Exodus 21:1. Now these are the judgments] There is so much good sense, feeling, humanity, equity, and justice in the following laws, that they cannot but be admired by every intelligent reader; and they are so very plain as to require very little comment. The laws in this chapter are termed political, those in the succeeding chapter judicial, laws; and are supposed to have been delivered to Moses alone, in consequence of the request of the people, Exodus 20:19, that God should communicate his will to Moses, and that Moses should, as mediator, convey it to them.