Exodus 21:21

21:21 However, if the injured servant 1  survives one or two days, the owner 2  will not be punished, for he has suffered the loss. 3 

Exodus 21:32

21:32 If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, the owner 4  must pay thirty shekels of silver, 5  and the ox must be stoned. 6 

Exodus 22:15

22:15 If its owner was with it, he will not have to pay; if it was hired, what was paid for the hire covers it. 7 

1 tn Heb “if he”; the referent (the servant struck and injured in the previous verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the owner of the injured servant) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

3 tn This last clause is a free paraphrase of the Hebrew, “for he is his money” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “his property.” It seems that if the slave survives a couple of days, it is probable that the master was punishing him and not intending to kill him. If he then dies, there is no penalty other than that the owner loses the slave who is his property – he suffers the loss.

4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the owner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

5 sn A shekel was a unit for measure by means of a scale. Both the weight and the value of a shekel of silver are hard to determine. “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181). Over four hundred years earlier, Joseph was sold into Egypt for 20 shekels. The free Israelite citizen was worth about 50 shekels (Lev 27:3f.).

6 sn See further B. S. Jackson, “The Goring Ox Again [Ex. 21,28-36],” JJP 18 (1974): 55-94.

7 tn Literally “it came with/for its hire,” this expression implies that the owner who hired it out and was present was prepared to take the risk, so there would be no compensation.