Chapter Overview
Summary
Exodus 21 begins the Covenant Code (21:1–23:19) — the case-rulings that apply the Decalogue to concrete legal situations. The chapter covers debt-slavery (21:2–11), capital offenses (21:12–17), bodily injury (21:18–27), and animal-caused harm (21:28–36). LXX Exodus 21 tracks MT closely. Its most theologically significant features for NT reception are the lex talionis of 21:23–25 (Matt 5:38), the thirty-shekel slave-valuation of 21:32 (Zech 11:12, Matt 27:9), and the ear-piercing bondage-ritual of 21:6 (cf. Psalm 40 LXX).
Notable Variants
The ear-piercing bondage-ritual at 21:6 echoed at Psalm 40:6 LXX (Hebrews 10:5 — 'a body you prepared for me'); the 'eye for eye' formula at 21:24 cited at Matt 5:38; the thirty silver shekels slave-valuation at 21:32 foreshadowing the betrayal-price of Matt 26:15 and Zech 11:12–13.
Structural Notes
LXX Exodus 21 preserves MT's 37-verse structure (with some modern English editions re-numbering 21:37 as 22:1).
These are the case-rulings that you are to place before them:
The introductory formula 'these are the case-rulings' (tauta ta dikaiōmata) tracks MT. The LXX's dikaiōma ('righteous decree, legal requirement') recurs at Romans 1:32 ('they know God's dikaiōma'), Romans 2:26 ('if those who are uncircumcised keep the dikaiōmata of the law'), Romans 8:4 ('so that the dikaiōma of the law might be fulfilled in us').
When you acquire a Hebrew bonded worker, he will serve for six years, but in the seventh year he goes free without payment.
The Hebrew-bondservant six-years-then-free provision tracks MT. The principle becomes a model for Jewish and later Christian thinking on debt-bondage limits.
If he entered alone, he leaves alone. If he is a married man, his wife leaves with him.
The entry/exit marital-status rules track MT.
If his master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters, the woman and her children belong to her master, and the man leaves alone.
The provision about master-given wives and children tracks MT — a legal detail that Paul does not cite but that shaped Jewish bondage jurisprudence.
But if the bonded worker clearly declares, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children — I will not go free,'
The voluntary-lifelong-bondage declaration tracks MT. 'I love my master' (ēgapēka ton kyrion mou) — using agapaō — is notable; the NT inverts it as Christ's bondservants confess love for kyrios Iēsous.
then his master brings him before God, and brings him to the door or the doorpost, and his master pierces his ear with an awl — and he will serve him permanently.
Masoretic (WLC)
וְרָצַע אֲדֹנָיו אֶת־אָזְנוֹ בַּמַּרְצֵעַ
his master pierces his ear with an awl
Septuagint (LXX)
καὶ τρυπήσει ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ τὸ οὖς τῷ ὀπητίῳ
his master shall bore through his ear with an awl
The ear-piercing ritual marks a freely-chosen permanent servitude. The 'ear' imagery connects with Psalm 40:6 MT ('ears you have dug for me') — but the LXX at Psalm 40:6 (LXX 39:7) has 'a body you prepared for me' (sōma de katērtisō moi) rather than 'ears.'
Hebrews 10:5 cites the LXX Psalm 39:7 ('a body you have prepared for me') to frame Christ's incarnation as the new covenant's replacement of sacrifice. The LXX's sōma-reading — unlikely to be a mere transcription error — supplies the key Christological-incarnational verse the Hebrew's 'ears' could not support.
The Exodus 21:6 'bored ear' of the voluntary slave and the Psalm 40/Hebrews 10 'prepared body' of the incarnate Son both figure the obedient servant who says 'here I am, I have come to do your will.'
When a man sells his daughter as a bonded woman, she does not go free in the same way as the male workers do.
The distinct legal treatment of female bondservants tracks MT. The provisions acknowledge the different social vulnerability of a daughter sold as bondservant.
If she is displeasing to her master who designated her for himself, he must allow her to be redeemed. He has no authority to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her.
The redemption-option for unwanted female bondservant tracks MT. The LXX's 'he must allow her to be redeemed' (apolytrōthēsetai) uses the same lytr- root that will carry the NT's redemption-Christology.
If he designates her for his son, he must treat her according to the rights of daughters.
The son-marriage provision tracks MT.
If he takes another wife for himself, he must not reduce her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.
Multi-wife maintenance obligations (food, clothing, conjugal rights) track MT.
If he does not provide these three things for her, she goes free without any payment.
The three-things-required / automatic release provision tracks MT.
Whoever strikes a person fatally must be put to death.
The capital penalty for intentional fatal assault tracks MT. 'Whoever strikes a person fatally' (ho patass; anthrōpon) is the LXX's standard homicide-legal formula.
But if he did not hunt him down, and God let it happen by his hand, then I will designate a place for you where he may flee.
The unintentional-killing provision and divine-designated city-of-refuge tracks MT. This principle develops into Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19.
But when a man plots deliberately against his neighbor to kill him by treachery, you must take him even from my altar to die.
The altar-sanctuary exception for intentional murderers tracks MT. The LXX's apo tou thysiastēriou mou ('from my altar') establishes the principle that even sanctuary does not protect premeditated murderers — a principle invoked at 1 Kings 2:28–34.
Whoever strikes his father or his mother must be put to death.
The capital penalty for striking parents tracks MT. The severity of parent-honor enforcement is the flip-side of the fifth commandment's blessing.
Whoever kidnaps a person — whether he has sold him or the victim is still found in his possession — must be put to death.
The capital penalty for kidnapping-for-sale tracks MT. 1 Timothy 1:10's vice-list ('kidnappers,' andrapodistai) traces to this LXX-Exodus anti-slavery provision.
Whoever curses his father or his mother must be put to death.
Masoretic (WLC)
וּמְקַלֵּל אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ מוֹת יוּמָת
Whoever curses his father or his mother must be put to death
Septuagint (LXX)
ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα αὐτοῦ ἢ μητέρα αὐτοῦ τελευτήσει θανάτῳ
Whoever speaks evil of his father or his mother shall end in death
Matthew 15:4 and Mark 7:10 (Jesus' Corban argument) cite this verse in its LXX form: "God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.'" The kakologōn vocabulary is distinctly LXX.
Jesus uses the LXX Exodus 21:17 to critique the Corban practice: by declaring goods korban (dedicated), sons could withhold support from parents, which Jesus identifies as 'speaking evil' of parents by action.
The conjunction of Exodus 20:12 (honor) with 21:17 (don't curse) in Jesus' citation demonstrates the LXX-Pentateuch's unity for rabbinic and early Christian exegesis.
When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and the victim does not die but is confined to bed —
Non-fatal assault with stone or fist tracks MT.
if the victim gets up and walks around outside on his own support, the striker is cleared — only he must compensate for the lost time and pay fully for healing.
The lost-time compensation and medical expenses provision tracks MT. The principle of paying for 'healing' (iatreia, medical treatment) is the legal precursor of biblical health-care ethics.
When a man strikes his male or female servant with a rod and the servant dies immediately, the master must be held accountable.
The master-kills-servant-immediately accountability provision tracks MT.
However, if the servant survives a day or two, the master is not punished, because the servant is his financial investment.
The one-or-two-days survival provision tracks MT. The provision — difficult for modern readers — reflects the Hebrew Bible's limited recognition of bondservants' rights.
When men are fighting and they injure a pregnant woman so that her children come out prematurely but no lasting harm occurs, the offender must pay a fine as the woman's husband demands, subject to judicial assessment.
Masoretic (WLC)
וְיָצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ וְלֹא יִהְיֶה אָסוֹן
her children come out prematurely but no lasting harm occurs
Septuagint (LXX)
καὶ ἐξέλθῃ τὸ παιδίον αὐτῆς μὴ ἐξεικονισμένον
her child comes out not yet fully formed
One of the most text-critically interesting verses in Exodus. The MT distinguishes 'without asōn (lasting harm)' from 'with asōn.' The LXX renders mē exeikonismenon ('not yet formed, not yet imaged') vs. exeikonismenon ('formed, imaged') — suggesting a distinction between early and later fetal development.
Philo (Special Laws 3.108) and early Christian commentators read the LXX as establishing a gestational-development distinction: early-term miscarriage (not-yet-formed) vs. later-term fetal death. This LXX reading shaped early Christian bioethics and the Didache's prohibition of abortion.
Later Christian reading of the verse generated substantial moral-theological discussion. TCR follows the MT's general 'lasting harm' reading; the LXX's fetal-development framing is documented here as an influential ancient reading of the verse.
But if lasting harm does occur, then the penalty is life for life,
The life-for-life formula (psychēn anti psychēs) tracks MT. The formulaic precision of the lex talionis continues in vv. 24–25.
an eye in place of an eye, a tooth in place of a tooth, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot,
Masoretic (WLC)
עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן שֵׁן תַּחַת שֵׁן
an eye in place of an eye, a tooth in place of a tooth
Septuagint (LXX)
ὀφθαλμὸν ἀντὶ ὀφθαλμοῦ ὀδόντα ἀντὶ ὀδόντος
eye for eye, tooth for tooth
Matthew 5:38 cites this verse in its LXX form — ophthalmon anti ophthalmou kai odonta anti odontos — in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount antithesis: "You have heard it was said, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist the evil person."
Jesus' 'but I say to you' antitheses treat the LXX-Exodus legal code as the authoritative 'what was said,' against which his teaching offers an intensified covenantal ethic. The LXX is the textual backdrop of the entire Sermon.
The lex talionis's ancient-legal function — limiting vengeance to proportionate response rather than escalation — is preserved in the Hebrew, but Jesus redirects it toward non-retaliation.
burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
The continuation of the lex talionis (burn, wound, bruise) tracks MT.
If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant and destroys it, he must release the servant as a free person in compensation for the eye.
The bondservant-eye-for-freedom provision tracks MT. This is one of the ancient world's earliest statutory protections of slave bodily integrity.
And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he must release the servant as a free person in compensation for the tooth.
The bondservant-tooth-for-freedom provision tracks MT.
When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is clear.
The goring-ox capital-penalty provision tracks MT. The ox is stoned (lithobolēsate) — a juridical treatment echoing the mountain-boundary stoning of Exodus 19:13.
But if the ox was known to gore in the past, and its owner was warned but did not keep it restrained, and it kills a man or a woman — the ox is stoned, and its owner also must be put to death.
The known-gorer's owner's liability tracks MT. The negligence-principle becomes foundational to Jewish and later Christian tort law.
If a ransom payment is imposed on him instead, he must pay whatever is set as the redemption price for his life.
The ransom-price option tracks MT. The lytron vocabulary recurs at NT redemption-texts (Mark 10:45 'the Son of Man came … to give his life as a ransom [lytron] for many').
Whether it gores a son or a daughter, the same ruling applies to the owner.
The equal treatment for son and daughter gorings tracks MT.
If the ox gores a male or female servant, the owner must pay thirty silver shekels to the servant's master, and the ox is stoned.
Masoretic (WLC)
כֶּסֶף שְׁלֹשִׁים שְׁקָלִים יִתֵּן לַאדֹנָיו
the owner must pay thirty silver shekels to the servant's master
Septuagint (LXX)
ἀργυρίου τριάκοντα δίδραχμα δώσει τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτῶν
he shall pay thirty silver didrachmas to their master
Thirty pieces of silver: the slave-valuation of Exodus 21:32 becomes Zechariah 11:12's shepherd-wage ('they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver'), which Matthew 27:9 applies to Judas's betrayal-price. The typological chain is LXX-Exodus → LXX-Zechariah → Matthean fulfillment.
The irony is sharp: the valuation of a gored slave in Exodus 21 is the valuation of the betrayed Son of Man in Matthew 27. Jesus is priced at the slave-market rate.
The LXX's didrachma (two-drachma piece) is the specific coin-vocabulary that Matthew 27:9's argyria carries forward — both circulating at the same value as the Hebrew shekel.
When a man opens a cistern, or when a man digs a cistern and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it —
The cistern-liability provision tracks MT. 'A man digs a cistern and does not cover it' becomes the generic image of preventable negligence.
the owner of the cistern must pay compensation — he returns silver to the animal's owner, and the dead animal becomes his.
The cistern-owner's compensation obligation tracks MT.
When one man's ox fatally injures another man's ox, they sell the living ox and split the proceeds equally, and they also split the dead animal equally.
The equal-split ox-injury provision tracks MT.
But if it was known that the ox was a habitual gorer and its owner did not keep it restrained, he must pay in full — ox for ox — and the dead animal becomes his.
The habitual-gorer's liability tracks MT.
When a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay five cattle in place of the ox and four sheep in place of the sheep.
The livestock-theft restitution schedule (five-for-ox, four-for-sheep) tracks MT. Luke 19:8 (Zacchaeus's 'if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times') echoes this restitution-quadruple principle.