Essay su Esodo 21:12

Four situations involving grave crimes are cited in this section, each ending with the pronouncement of the death penalty in rhetorical form (Heb. mot yumat, “He is to be put-to-death, yes, death”): murder, striking one’s parents, kidnapping, and denigrating one’s parents. Our society has in general supported the first and third of these; but the regulations concerning father and mother do not accord with twentieth-century Western practice, and point up well the enormous importance of the parent-child relationship in ancient Israel (already suggested by “Honor your father and your mother” in the Ten Words). That relationship was often used to describe the one between God and Israel, and thus obedience is an important theme in the covenant as a whole.