In Exodus 21:26, “If a man hits one of his servants, male or female, causing the loss of an eye, he compensates for the loss by letting the servant go free.” And the same for a lost tooth (27).
Which seems to contradict the previous law of “punishment in kind” (in the last blog). Based on that law, shouldn’t the owner compensate for knocking out his servant’s eye or tooth by having his own eye or tooth removed? But not in this case, so why the difference?
The difference harks back to Yahweh choosing one nation on the entire planet to build a holy, wise and understanding people with a big heart, unlike any nation that had existed up to that point. And the difference would be so great and so noticeable that other nations would wish they had a God like that too (Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
And one area where that difference would really show up was in an owner of servants or slaves treating them so well that, rather than be set free at the end of their allotted six years (Exodus 21:2), they’d wish to remain with him (verses 5-6). So with that ideal set by Yahweh, why on earth would an owner hit one of his servants so hard that it destroyed the servant’s eye or tooth? This was more than just taking a swing at a servant for spilling soup on his favourite dog; this was a vicious assault.
So how to punish the owner, not only for the damage and humiliation he’d inflicted on his servant, but also for the contempt he’d shown for Yahweh’s plan to make Israel noticeably different to the nations around them?
Fair justice would demand a far more serious punishment than the owner losing an eye or tooth in return. And Yahweh thought so too, because this was the time when he introduced fitting the punishment to the crime, by commanding the owner to let his servant go free, which meant the owner lost everything that his servant had done for him. It satisfied justice when punishment in kind was not possible, or not enough.
A modern equivalent would be justice for those horribly injured by a vaccine that was known to be dangerous. Punishment in kind wouldn’t be possible or satisfying in this case, but a punishment to fit the seriousness of the crime would. Absolutely crucial in such serious cases, therefore, would be “Placing the blame where it belongs” ….(next blog)
