The Justice We Despise: Property, Punishment, and Persons Text: Exodus 21:20-21
Introduction: The Modern Gag Reflex
There are certain passages in Holy Scripture that function as a kind of spiritual gag reflex for modern man. Our therapeutic, sentimentalist, and egalitarian age reads a text like this one and immediately recoils. We do not merely disagree with it; we are offended by it. We consider it barbaric, cruel, and manifestly unjust. And in this visceral reaction, we reveal far more about ourselves than we do about the text. We reveal that our ultimate standard of justice is not the character of the holy God who spoke the world into existence, but rather our own autonomous and ever shifting feelings.
We come to the Word of God not as humble creatures to be instructed, but as self-appointed judges, red pen in hand, ready to cross out anything that does not comport with the latest ethical fads cooked up in the halls of godless academia. But God does not submit His law for our approval. He gives it for our obedience. Our task is not to tame the text, or apologize for it, or explain it away. Our task is to understand it, and in understanding it, to see the profound and perfect justice of God.
Before we can even approach these verses, we must make a crucial distinction that our age is determined to ignore. The Bible condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the kind of slavery that built the antebellum South. The foundation of the Atlantic slave trade was man stealing, kidnapping men and selling them into bondage. And what does this very same chapter of Exodus say about that? "He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:16). The death penalty. The very legal code we are examining pronounces a capital sentence on the foundational sin of American chattel slavery. To use this text to defend that system is a gross and malicious twisting of the Word of God.
What the Mosaic law does is regulate a system of indentured servitude, a form of voluntary bondage entered into, usually for economic reasons like the payment of a debt. It was a welfare system, a bankruptcy law, and a labor arrangement all in one. And even within this system, God places strict, humane, and, for the ancient world, revolutionary limits on the authority of the master. This law is not an endorsement of brutality. It is the very opposite. It is the application of God's perfect justice to a fallen world, establishing the personhood of the servant and holding the master accountable before God.
The Text
And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall surely be punished.
But if for a day or two he is able to stand, no punishment shall be taken; for he is his property.
(Exodus 21:20-21 LSB)
The Crime and the Punishment (v. 20)
The first verse establishes a principle that was radical in the ancient Near East.
"And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall surely be punished." (Exodus 21:20 LSB)
Let us break this down. First, the action is that a man "strikes his male or female slave with a rod." The rod was a common instrument of discipline, used by fathers on sons and masters on servants. The law acknowledges the master's right to administer discipline. This was a hierarchical society, and authority included the right of correction. But this right was not absolute. It was governed by law and limited by God.
The critical factor here is the outcome: "and he dies at his hand." The discipline has gone too far. It has crossed the line from correction to homicide. The master's authority ends where the servant's life is threatened. This is because the servant, while in a position of economic and social subordination, is still a man or woman made in the image of God. Their life is sacred.
Therefore, the law commands that "he shall surely be punished." The Hebrew here is potent: `naqam yinnaqem`, it shall surely be avenged or vindicated. This is not a mere suggestion. It is a divine mandate for justice. In surrounding pagan cultures, if a man killed his own slave, it was often treated as a simple loss of property, like killing one's own ox. The master might have to pay a fine to the state, if that. But here, God's law says the master is personally culpable. He is a criminal. He has taken a human life, and God's justice demands a reckoning. This single clause elevates the status of the servant from a mere thing to a person with legal protection under the covenant. The master is not autonomous; he is under God's law.
The Qualification and the Rationale (v. 21)
The next verse provides a legal distinction that is foundational to all true justice, but it contains the phrase that so deeply offends our modern sensibilities.
"But if for a day or two he is able to stand, no punishment shall be taken; for he is his property." (Exodus 21:21 LSB)
Here we find the principle of intent. "If for a day or two he is able to stand," or as some translations render it, "if he survives a day or two." This is not a loophole that allows a master to beat a servant to within an inch of his life and get away with it. This is an evidentiary standard. In a world without modern forensics, this was the way the court determined the master's intention. If the servant died immediately, under the rod, the presumption was that the master intended to kill him, or was so reckless as to be guilty of murder. But if the servant lived for a day or two and then died, the presumption was that the master's intent was discipline, not murder, and the subsequent death was an unintended, tragic consequence. The law distinguishes between murder and what we would call manslaughter.
In such a case, the text says, "no punishment shall be taken." But this is where we must read carefully. It does not mean the master gets off scot-free. It means that the specific punishment for murder is not to be applied. Why? The rationale is given: "for he is his property."
And here is the stumbling block. But the Hebrew, `kaspo hu`, literally means "he is his silver" or "he is his money." This is not a metaphysical statement about the servant's ontology. It is a statement about economic reality. In the case of this unintentional death, the punishment is financial. The master has already suffered a massive economic blow. He has lost his servant, who represented a significant capital investment and whose labor was valuable. That financial loss is the punishment. He has destroyed his own property through his excessive anger or carelessness, and the law says that this severe financial penalty is sufficient for the crime of manslaughter.
Think of it this way. If the master intended to kill the servant, the "property" argument is irrelevant. The master is punished as a murderer (v. 20). The servant's personhood trumps the master's property rights. But if the master did not intend to kill the servant, the economic reality of the situation comes into play. The punishment fits the crime. For the capital crime of murder, a penal punishment is required. For the lesser crime of manslaughter, a severe financial punishment is enacted by the consequence of the action itself. This law does not devalue the servant; it provides a wise and just distinction between degrees of culpability, a principle every just legal system in the West has inherited.
The Gospel of True Ownership
This law, which seems so offensive, actually contains the seeds of the gospel. It deals with masters, servants, punishment, and ownership. And this is the language of our redemption.
We were all slaves. We were in bondage to sin, and the master we served was a cruel one. "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34). And the outcome of this service was death. We were all under a sentence of death, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We were God's property by right of creation, but we were rebellious property. We were servants who had disobeyed unto death.
Under the justice of the law, our Master would have been entirely right to strike us down. We died "at His hand" in our sin and rebellion in Adam. And the punishment was just. But God, in His infinite mercy, chose a different path. He did not execute the punishment on us, His rebellious property. Instead, He sent His own Son.
On the cross, Jesus Christ, the Son, took the place of the wicked servant. The rod of God's perfect justice, the wrath we deserved for our sin, fell upon Him. He was struck down. He died "at the hand" of the Father's determined counsel (Acts 2:23). The Father did not spare His own Son, His most precious possession, in order to spare us, His wayward servants.
And in doing this, He purchased us. We are no longer our own; we were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). We are now His property. Not in the sense of chattel, not as `kaspo hu`, his silver. We have been made sons and daughters. We are slaves to righteousness, which is the only true freedom. The law in Exodus shows us a master's property rights limited by justice. The gospel shows us a Master's justice satisfied by love, as He sacrifices His own Son to redeem His property. He did not lose His investment; He laid it down willingly so that He might gain a family.
Therefore, do not recoil from the hard edges of God's law. See in them the framework of true justice, a justice that makes distinctions, honors personhood, and punishes sin. And then see how that perfect justice is perfectly satisfied and transcended by the glorious mercy of the gospel, where our Master became our Redeemer, and our Judge became our Father.