Hebrew Bible Study
Hebrew Bible Study

Musar for Exodus 21:12

מַכֵּ֥ה אִ֛ישׁ וָמֵ֖ת מ֥וֹת יוּמָֽת׃

He that smiteth a man, so that he dieth, shall surely be put to death.

Shenei Luchot HaBerit

מות יומת הנואף והנואפת . The reason why both adulterer and adulteress are to be executed by suffocation (20,10), a relatively easy death penalty, may be connected to what the Torah writes elsewhere concerning the type of death penalty to be administered to a murderer. For a person who murdered another with one single stroke (or bullet causing instant death), the Torah legislated death by suffocation; he presumably did not make his victim suffer. There is no reason therefore to impose a harsher type of execution on the adulterer.
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