Essay su Esodo 21:78

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.

The vocabulary of verbs in these verses outlines the subject at hand: “quarrel,” “strike,” “contend,” “harm,” “strike,” “break-off,” “give.” The text treats a number of extenuating circumstances, imposing penalties of varying degrees. The case of an accidentally caused abortion is especially highlighted (vv.22–25), and in a famous verse (23), the lawgiver breaks into rhetoric in order to stress that punishments be scrupulously fair. Also notable is the regulation concerning the goring ox (vv.28–32), where an animal is made to pay the death penalty, since it has destroyed the most sacred thing of all—life itself. Both of the latter cases have received exhaustive treatment in the scholarly literature (see Sarna 1986).

These regulations cover various damages to property, commonly through negligence. The key word here is “pay” (Heb. shallem, denoting restitution); also repeated are “fellow” and “God’s-oracle.”