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Exodus 21

Exodus 21 places Israel’s household and civil disputes under God’s authority, assigning consequences for violence, injury, and neglect.

God gives Moses ordinances to set before Israel, beginning with rules for Hebrew servants and daughters sold into servitude. The laws then address killing, attacks on parents, kidnapping, and injuries arising from fights. They distinguish intent from accident and assign penalties or compensation. Servants receive certain protections, while remaining subject to ownership and unequal treatment. The closing cases concern dangerous bulls and uncovered pits, making owners answer for harm caused by hazards they knew about or created.

sermon or Bible study notesinjustice and anger
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1“Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them:
2“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
5But if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;’
6then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.
7“If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.
8If she doesn’t please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.
10If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights.
12“One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,
13but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
14If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15“Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
16“Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
17“Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
18“If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn’t die, but is confined to bed;
20“If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, the man shall surely be punished.
21Notwithstanding, if his servant gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for the servant is his property.
22“If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman’s husband demands and the judges allow.
23But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,
24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
26“If a man strikes his servant’s eye, or his maid’s eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.
28“If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its meat shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
30If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed.
32If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.
33“If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn’t cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,
34the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Exodus 21:17The death penalty for cursing parents shows the grave weight these ordinances place on parental honor.
Exodus 21:14Even God’s altar offers no shelter from judgment for someone who has planned a neighbor’s murder.
Exodus 21:12The penalty for fatal violence introduces the distinction between intentional killing and unintended death developed in the next verses.
Where this chapter reaches

Deuteronomy and Numbers share the distinction between murder and unintended killing, along with provision for refuge; Leviticus shares the rule of proportional penalties for bodily injury. Matthew quotes both the penalty for cursing parents and the eye-for-eye rule in Jesus’ teaching.

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After reading the whole chapter

What differences do you notice between the laws governing free people and those governing servants?

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How do the dangerous bull and uncovered pit cases shape your understanding of responsibility for preventable harm?

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Questions people ask about Exodus 21

Does Exodus 21 allow slavery?

Yes. These ordinances permit and regulate slavery within ancient Israel. A Hebrew male servant receives release after six years, while a daughter sold into servitude falls under different rules. The chapter requires some protections and release for certain injuries, yet also treats servants as property and permits a master to retain a servant’s wife and children.

What does “eye for eye” mean in Exodus 21?

The phrase states a principle of proportional judgment: the penalty corresponds to the harm done. It appears in a case where fighting men injure a pregnant woman. Judges are mentioned in the preceding verse, placing the rule within legal proceedings. The passage does not explain how every listed penalty was to be administered.

Why does Exodus 21 prescribe death for cursing parents?

Verse 17 treats cursing a father or mother as a capital offense within Israel’s civil law. It stands near laws against attacking parents, murder, and kidnapping, showing how grave the offense is within this legal order. The chapter gives no further explanation of the penalty or detailed definition of cursing.

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What the Bible says about anger →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).