Exodus Chapter 21 verse 22 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 22-25. - Assault producing miscarriage. Retaliation. Women in all countries are apt to interfere in the quarrels of men, and run the risk of suffering injuries which proceed from accident rather than design, one such injury being of a peculiar character, to which there is nothing correspondent among the injuries which may be done to man. This is abortion, or miscarriage. The Mosaic legislation sought to protect pregnant women from suffering this injury by providing, first, that if death resulted the offender should suffer death (ver. 23); and, secondly, that if there were no further ill-result than the miscarriage itself, still a fine should be paid, to be assessed by the husband of the injured woman with the consent of the judges (ver. 22). The mention of "life for life," in ver. 23, is followed by an enunciation of the general "law of retaliation," applied here (it would seem) to the special case in hand, but elsewhere (Leviticus 24:19, 20) extended so as to be a fundamental law, applicable to all cases of personal injury. Verse 22. - If men strive and hurt a woman. A chance hurt is clearly intended, not one done on purpose. So that her fruit depart from her. So that she be prematurely delivered of a dead child. And no mischief follow. "Mischief" here means "death," as in Genesis 42:4, 38; Genesis 44:29. He shall pay as the judges determine. He was not to be wholly at the mercy of the injured father. If he thought the sum demanded was excessive, there was to be an appeal to a tribunal.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(22-25) A personal injury peculiar to women--a hurt producing miscarriage--is here considered. The miscarriage might cost the woman her life, in which case the man who caused it was to suffer death (Exodus 21:23); or it might have no further ill result than the loss of the child. In this latter case the penalty was to be a fine, assessed by the husband with the consent of the judge (Exodus 21:22). The death penalty, where the woman died, is clearly excessive, and probably belongs to the pre-Mosaic legislation, which required "life for life" in every case.(22) If men strive, and hurt a woman with child.--It is assumed that this hurt would probably take place through the interference of a pregnant wife in some strife wherein her husband was engaged. It would almost certainly be accidental.And yet no mischief follow--i.e., no further mischief--nothing beyond the loss of the child.(22, 23) Life for life, eye for eye.--It is a reasonable conjecture that the law of retaliation was much older than Moses, and accepted by him as tolerable rather than devised as rightful. The law itself was very widely spread. Traces of it are found in India, in Egypt, among the Greeks, and in the laws of the Twelve Tables. Aristotle says that the Pythagoreans approved it, and that it was believed to be the rule by which Rhadamanthus administered justice in the other world. There is, prima facie, a semblance of exact rectitude and equality about it which captivates rude minds, and causes the adoption of the rule generally in an early condition of society. Theoretically, retaliation is the exactest and strictest justice; but in practice difficulties arise. How is the force of a blow to be measured? How are exactly similar burns and wounds to be inflicted? Is eye to be given for eye when the injurer is a one-eyed man? And, again, is it expedient for law to multiply the number of mutilated citizens in a community? Considerations of these kinds cause the rule to be discarded as soon as civilisation reaches a certain point, and tend generally to the substitution of a money compensation, to be paid to the injured party by the injurer. The present passage sanctioned the law of retaliation in principle, but authorised its enforcement in a single case only. In a later part of the Mosaic code the application was made universal (Leviticus 24:17-21; Deuteronomy 19:21). . . .