Wyjścia 21:29 Komentarz: Rashi, Chizkuni, Da'at Zekenim & Ramban

מתמל שלשם [BUT IF THE OX HAS BEEN WONT TO THRUST] YESTERDAY AND BEFORE YESTERDAY — Here you have including the present occasion the three times an ox must gore before it can be declared a מועד (Bava Kamma 23b).‎

וגם בעליו יומת, “and also its owner is guilty of the death penalty by execution.” According to the plain meaning of the text he should be executed in practice, seeing that he was aware of allowing a dangerous animal to be on the loose, and he took no precautions.

ואם שור נגח הוא, “but if that ox had had a history of goring people, (and its owner had not taken proper precautions);“ The Talmud, tractate Baba Kamma folio 23, relates a dispute between two scholars, Abbaye and Rava whether the term נגח applies to an ox that already gored twice or whether even after having gored once, that animal belongs to the category of being potential a killer, and its owner being guilty of not having protected potential victims properly. The subject of their dispute is the meaning of the word תמול, usually understood to mean “yesterday.” According to the former scholar, even a single incident of goring suffices for the ox to be categorised as dangerous, and the prefix מ i.e. מתמול, would refer to the second offense by that ox, so that the words ולא ישמרנו, “and its owner did not watch it adequately,” would make him liable to stoning only the fourth time whereas according to the second scholar, basing himself on the word שלשום, “day before yesterday,” that ox’s status did not change from harmless to dangerous until after it had gored three times. According to Rava, the words ולא ישמרנו, would then mean that only after a third such occurrence did this ox change its category, and its owner became guilty on an additional count According to the Talmud in tractate Baba batra, folio 28, such an ox is subject to stoning only after it has gored the fourth time. seems therefore that Abaye found four sources in the Torah’s text supporting his view whereas Rava found only three. If you were to ask what difference this makes, [after all we do not decide questions of halachah on the written text of the Torah, but use it only as broad hints, Ed.] Rabbi Ezra hanavi claims that there is a difference. The difference would be if the fourth goring had occurred on the same day as the third goring. According to Abbaye, if the last goring would have occurred on the same day as the previous one, the owner as well as his ox would not be held liable for the additional negligence, as the owner on a day when his ox was bad-tempered had not yet had time to place him under secure restraint.