The Price of an Eye: Justice in the House of Servants Text: Exodus 21:26-27
Introduction: God's Dictionary
We live in an age that has a severe case of the vapors. Our generation reads a passage like this one and immediately reaches for the fainting couch. The word "slave" triggers a gag reflex in the modern mind, a mind that has been catechized for decades by sentimental humanism. This is a mind that prides itself on its compassion, while presiding over a holocaust of the unborn. It strains at the gnat of Old Testament servitude and swallows the camel of industrial-scale abortion. This is not a consistent ethic; it is a pathetic and self-congratulatory hypocrisy.
When we come to the case law of Moses, we must leave our modern dictionary at the door. We must refuse to allow our enemies to define the terms of the debate. The Bible is not embarrassed by its own teaching, and we must not be either. God is not wringing His hands in heaven, hoping we can come up with a clever apologetic to explain away His difficult words. These words are not a problem to be solved; they are the solution to a problem. That problem is man's injustice, cruelty, and sin. God, in His law, is not instituting a fallen world. He is legislating for a fallen world, and in so doing, He restrains evil, protects the vulnerable, and teaches us the meaning of true justice.
The laws concerning servants in the Mosaic code were a massive, world-altering leap forward in human rights. To compare the biblical bondservant to the chattel slaves of Rome or the American South is an act of historical ignorance and exegetical malpractice. The transatlantic slave trade was based on man-stealing, a practice the Mosaic law condemns as a capital crime. "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 entire foundation of modern chattel slavery was therefore a capital offense under God's law. What we have in Exodus is largely a system of indentured servitude, a kind of voluntary bankruptcy protection for the destitute. It was a social safety net in a world with no such things.
In these two verses, we see God inserting His authority into the master/servant relationship in a way that was utterly revolutionary. He establishes a principle that is anathema to every pagan system of slavery: the servant is a man, not a tool. He has rights, he has value, and his body is not the absolute property of his master. This is not an accommodation to the darkness; it is an injection of divine light.
The Text
And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave and ruins it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye.
And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.
(Exodus 21:26-27 LSB)
The Value of a Servant's Eye (v. 26)
We begin with the case of a severe and permanent injury.
"And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave and ruins it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye." (Exodus 21:26)
Notice the language. "If a man strikes the eye." This is not an accident. This is an act of violence, of abuse. This is a master losing his temper and inflicting a permanent, debilitating injury on his servant. In any other ancient law code, this would be a non-event legally. A man had damaged his own property. It would be like keying your own car. The state would have nothing to say about it.
But God's law steps in with force. The law recognizes the personhood of the servant, designated here as either male or female, making no distinction. The servant is not a thing; he is an image-bearer of God. And because he is a person, an injury against him demands justice. What is that justice? It is not a fine paid to the court. It is not a flogging for the master. The penalty is manumission. "He shall let him go free."
This is a staggering piece of legislation. The restitution for the injury is paid directly to the injured party, and the currency is freedom. The master's abusive act costs him his entire investment. The remaining years of service, which could be many, are forfeited. This is a powerful economic disincentive. A master who was prone to violence would be a master who was prone to bankruptcy. God's law makes abusing your servants bad for business.
But the principle is deeper than economics. The law establishes a valuation. A servant's eye is worth more than his entire economic value to his master. His physical integrity, his personhood, is valued above his labor. By this one statute, God elevates the servant from a piece of property to a person with rights that his master is legally bound to respect. This law declares that a man's right to his own body is greater than another man's right to his labor.
The Dignity of a Servant's Tooth (v. 27)
The principle is then extended to a lesser injury, which makes the law's scope even broader.
"And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth." (Exodus 21:27 LSB)
Losing an eye is a catastrophic injury. Losing a tooth is serious, painful, and disfiguring, but it is not on the same level. By including the tooth, the law makes it clear that any permanent physical damage resulting from the master's violence triggers the same penalty. The master does not get to argue degrees of injury. He does not get to say, "It was just a tooth." A tooth is enough. A tooth is worth a man's freedom.
This is a brilliant application of the principle of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." But notice how it is applied. This is not about literal retaliation. The master does not lose his tooth. The lex talionis was a principle of proportionate justice, not of vindictive personal revenge. Here, the principle is applied in a wonderfully asymmetrical and redemptive way. The master loses his property, and the slave gains his personhood. Justice is done, and the result is liberty.
This law stands in stark contrast to other ancient codes. In the Code of Hammurabi, if a man knocked out the tooth of a social equal, he had his own tooth knocked out. But if he knocked out the tooth of a slave, he simply paid a small fine, a fraction of the slave's value. The slave got nothing. The master was simply compensating another master for damaging his property. But in God's law, the slave himself is the beneficiary. Justice is for the weak, not just for the powerful. God is establishing a nation where the lowest members of society have legal protection from the highest.
The Gospel of Manumission
Like all of God's law, this statute is not a dead letter from a forgotten time. It is a schoolmaster that points us to Christ. In these verses, we see a powerful picture of bondage, injury, and liberation that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the gospel.
We were all, by nature, slaves. We were not in bondage to a human master, but to a far more terrible one: sin. "Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin'" (John 8:34). This was not an economic arrangement; it was a total spiritual condition. We were owned by our rebellion, and the just wage for that service was death (Romans 6:23). Our bondage was permanent, and our end was damnation.
In our slavery, we were injured. Sin had blinded our eyes and broken us. We were spiritually disfigured, unable to see God's truth or to praise His name. We were ruined. And under the law of sin and death, there was no provision for freedom. Our master, sin, had no intention of letting us go.
But then God intervened, just as He did in the house of the Hebrew master. But the transaction was gloriously reversed. We were not set free on account of an injury we received from our Master. We have been set free on account of an injury our Master received for us.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only true Master, did not strike us. Instead, He was stricken for us. His body was broken. His blood was shed. He endured the ultimate, permanent injury of death on a cross. He allowed Himself to be ruined so that we, His rebellious servants, could be liberated. "He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5).
Our manumission papers were written in His blood. We are set free "on account of His eye," on account of His body, on account of His life, given for us. The price of our freedom was not the forfeiture of a master's property, but the sacrifice of the Master Himself. And in this great exchange, we are not simply released from servitude. We are adopted as sons. "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (Galatians 4:7).
This law in Exodus, which protected the body of the lowest servant in Israel, was a signpost pointing to the great salvation that would protect the soul of every believer. It shows us a God who hates abuse, who loves justice, and who values His people so highly that He would pay the ultimate price to set them free forever.