Commentaire de citation sur L’Exode 21:21

One who strikes his slave, the "day or two" is twenty-four hours. The next two sections are here only because they deal with other cases in which a 24 hour waiting period is relevant. If a person strikes his slave and the slave is okay for 24 hours, and then he dies, the owner is exempt (Exodus 21:21). The rabbis understand "a day or two" to be a 24 hour waiting period.

einen oder zwei Tage. Exod. 21, 21 אך אם יום או יומים יעמוד. S. Mechilta z. St. יום שהוא כיומים ויומים שהן כיום הא כיצד מעת לעת.

ויקרא...אך הנה אשתך, the word אך in this verse means the same as the word אבל, “but, however.” It also appears in this sense in Exodus 31,13 אך את שבתותי תשמורו, “but you must observe My Sabbath days,” (even when engaged in building the Tabernacle) In Exodus 21,22, when speaking about someone dying as a result of an injury deliberately inflicted upon him, the Torah writes אך אם יום או יומים יעמוד, “but if the victim can stand on his feet for a day or two days, etc.” (his death is not directly attributable to the injury described). In our verse, Avimelech challenges Yitzchok who had presented his wife as being his sister by saying: “but I have seen with my own eyes that she is your wife!” He used the fact that he had observed Yitzchok being intimate with Rivkah as proof that therefore she must be his wife, as no one sleeps with a woman who is not his wife.

וכי יכה איש את עבדו או את אמתו AND IF A MAN SMITE HIS SERVANT OR HIS MAIDSERVANT — Scripture speaks of a Canaanitish servant. Or perhaps this is not so, but it speaks of a Hebrew servant? Scripture however states, (Exodus 21:21) “for he is his money”. How is it in the case of his money? It is something that is his forever (i. e. it is something the possession of which is not limited to a definite time)! So also the servant referred to here is such a one as is his forever (and only a Canaanitish servant serves his master for ever, cf. Leviticus 25:46, whilst the Hebrew servant goes free after six years). But surely he (one that smites his servant) is included in the general statement, (Exodus 21:12) ”Whosoever smiteth a man [so that he die shall surely be put to death]”; why, then, is this case mentioned at all? But Scripture singles it out from the general statement that he (who smiteth his servant etc.) may be subject to the particular regulation of “a day or two” (Exodus 21:21) — that if he (the servant) does not die beneath his hand and continue to live twenty-four hours his master should be freed from the death-penalty (Mekhilta).