Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Moses on Sinai receives from God judicial precepts concerning servants and handmaids, concerning thefts, homicides, curses against parents, and quarrels; and at verse 24 and following, he delivers the law of retaliation both for the person who injures and for the goring ox.
Note. Just as in the preceding chapter God established the moral precepts, namely the Decalogue, so in this chapter and the two following He establishes the judicial precepts; but in chapter 25 and the five following He establishes the ceremonial precepts, namely the construction of the tabernacle, and other things pertaining thereto.
Vulgate Text: Exodus 21:1-36
1. These are the judgments which you shall set before them. 2. If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve you six years; in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 3. With whatever garment he came in, with such let him go out: if he has a wife, his wife also shall go out with him. 4. But if the master has given him a wife, and she has borne sons and daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master; but he himself shall go out with his clothing. 5. But if the servant shall say: I love my master and my wife and children, I will not go out free, 6. his master shall bring him to the judges, and he shall be brought to the door and the posts, and he shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall be his servant forever. 7. If anyone sells his daughter as a handmaid, she shall not go out as female servants are accustomed to go out. 8. If she displeases the eyes of her master to whom she was delivered, he shall let her go; but he shall have no power to sell her to a foreign people, if he has despised her. 9. But if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 10. But if he takes another wife for him, he shall provide the girl with marriage rights, and clothing, and shall not deny her the price of her chastity. 11. If he does not do these three things, she shall go out free without money. 12. He who strikes a man, willing to kill, shall die the death. 13. But he who did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hands, I will appoint you a place to which he must flee. 14. If anyone deliberately kills his neighbor, and by ambush, you shall tear him from My altar, that he may die. 15. He who strikes his father or his mother shall die the death. 16. He who steals a man and sells him, convicted of the crime, shall die the death. 17. He who curses his father or mother shall die the death. 18. If men quarrel, and one strikes his neighbor with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but lies in bed: 19. if he rises and walks abroad upon his staff, he who struck him shall be innocent, yet so that he shall pay for the loss of his time and the expenses of the physicians. 20. He who strikes his male servant or his female servant with a rod, and they die under his hand, he shall be guilty of the crime. 21. But if they survive one day or two, he shall not be subject to the penalty, because they are his property. 22. If men quarrel and one strikes a pregnant woman, and she indeed miscarries but herself survives, he shall be subject to as much damage as the husband of the woman demands and the arbitrators judge. 23. But if her death follows, he shall render life for life, 24. eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25. burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. 26. If anyone strikes the eye of his male servant or female servant and makes them one-eyed, he shall let them go free for the eye which he knocked out. 27. Likewise if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female servant, he shall similarly let them go free. 28. If an ox gores a man or a woman with its horn and they die, it shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; the owner also of the ox shall be innocent. 29. But if the ox was a gorer from yesterday and the day before, and they warned its owner, yet he did not confine it, and it kills a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned and its owner shall be put to death. 30. But if a price is imposed on him, he shall give for his life whatever is demanded. 31. If it gores a son or a daughter with its horn, it shall be subject to the same sentence. 32. If it attacks a male or female servant, he shall give thirty shekels of silver to the master; the ox shall be stoned. 33. If anyone opens a cistern, or digs one, and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34. the owner of the cistern shall pay the price of the animals: but what is dead shall be his. 35. If one man's ox hurts another's ox and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide the price; and they shall also divide the carcass of the dead one between them. 36. But if he knew that the ox was a gorer from yesterday and the day before, and its owner did not keep it in; he shall pay ox for ox, and shall take the whole carcass.
Verse 1: These Are the Judgments Which You Shall Set Before Them
He calls them "judgments," that is, judicial precepts, which God prescribes in these three chapters, namely XXI, XXII, XXIII, for governing the people justly and peacefully, and for settling disputes among the Hebrews; just as ceremonial precepts are called those which were prescribed by God for the people to worship God properly through sacrifices and other sacred rites and ceremonies: therefore the nature of judicial precepts properly consists in two things, says St. Thomas, I-II, Question CIV, article 1: first, that they pertain to the ordering of men toward one another; second, that they do not have the force of obligation from reason alone, but from the institution of God.
Note that among these judicial precepts, certain moral precepts, which are of natural law, are also intermixed, especially those which pertain to judges, which therefore are also rightly called "judgments": such is that of chapter XXIII, verse 1: "You shall not receive a lying voice;" and verse 2: "You shall not follow the crowd to do evil;" and verse 7: "You shall flee from lying;" and verse 9: "You shall not be troublesome to the stranger," etc.
Finally at the end, namely chapter XXIII, verse 14, He adds certain ceremonial precepts, namely concerning the three principal feasts to be celebrated, concerning the Passover, concerning leaven, concerning first-fruits, etc.
Verse 2: If You Buy a Hebrew Servant, He Shall Serve You Six Years
He calls him a "servant," not a hired laborer, but a slave: for the former is hired, while the latter is bought and sold, as if to say: If you buy a Hebrew so that he is like a slave to you, he shall serve you only six years, and cannot serve beyond that: for in the seventh year (as I so will and declare here) he must be released free.
IN THE SEVENTH (year) HE SHALL GO OUT FREE FOR NOTHING. — Note that this seventh year is not to be counted from the purchase of the servant, but that one and the same year of release was for all, just as one and the same day was the Sabbath for all Hebrews; therefore there was a fixed seven-year cycle of liberty, one continuously succeeding another (just as one jubilee continuously succeeded another), so that in every recurring seventh year, all servants of the Hebrews had to be manumitted: therefore a Hebrew who was sold into servitude in the first year of this seven-year cycle had to serve six years; but one who was sold in the sixth year of this seven-year cycle went out free the following year, being the seventh; it was similar in the jubilee, as I shall say at Leviticus chapter XXV. I shall review the mysteries of the number seven at Deuteronomy chapter V, verse 12.
HE SHALL GO OUT FREE, — so that you may know that he is not so much a servant as a free man, inasmuch as he was liberated by Me from Egyptian servitude and bound to My service. See Leviticus chapter XXV, verse 39.
Verse 3: With Whatever Garment He Came In, With Such Let Him Go Out
The Seventy, the Chaldean, Vatablus and more recent authors commonly translate: if with his body, that is, alone and unattached, he came, with his body, that is alone, let him go out, and this is aptly opposed to what follows: "If he has a wife, his wife also shall go out with him." But St. Jerome, most skilled in Hebrew, more correctly and fully translates, and more keenly perceived that not one thing, as the former wish, but two things are prescribed here, namely that the servant should not be dismissed ragged or naked, nor without a wife, so that the wife also becomes free with him, and a garment as respectable as he had when he entered should be given to him on leaving: for this was clearly fitting and proper. Add that in Hebrew it is not guph, that is, body, but gaph, that is, wing, that is, a garment, which covers the body like a wing; such metaphors are customary among the Hebrews.
Verse 4: But If the Master Has Given Him a Wife
As if to say: The wife shall remain a servant to the master, by whom the wife had been given to the servant: consequently his children shall also remain with the master; for the offspring follows the womb, as the axiom of jurists holds in this matter. So say Oleaster, Cajetan, Lipomanus.
It seems that here the marriage between the servant and the female servant was dissolved, both because the servant was making a divorce from his wife and children: for the servant went out free, while the female servant with her children remained a servant of her master; and also because it is added: "But if the servant says, I love my master and my wife and children (I do not wish to be torn from them by divorce), I will not go out free, his master shall bring him to the gods" (judges), who shall bore through his ear with an awl, and so he shall become a servant in perpetuity.
From this it is clear that in the old law marriages were very imperfect, since spouses were so easily separated, with the husband going out free, released and unburdened from the care of wife and children; while the wife remained a servant of the same master, upon whom therefore the upbringing and care both of the servant woman and of her children fell; nor is this surprising: for at that time marriage did not have the character of a Sacrament, on account of which especially in the new law it is now plainly indissoluble, by the decree of Christ, Matthew chapter XIX, verses 5 and 9.
Verse 6: To the Gods — and the Boring of the Ear
Hebrew: Elohim, which signifies God as judge and governor of all things, and thence angels and judges, who participate in this judicial and governing power of God. So it is said in Exodus chapter XXII, verse 28: "You shall not disparage the gods (judges), and you shall not curse the ruler of your people;" and Psalm LXXXI, verse 1, God says to the judges: "I said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High." Let judges consider this, and know that they are gods, so that they may not fear men, but the one God, whose role they fulfill, and by whose authority they function.
HE SHALL BE BROUGHT TO THE DOOR AND THE POSTS, — namely of the master's house; for it is clear from Deuteronomy chapter XV, verse 12, that this should be done there, and not at the door of the city gates where judges are accustomed to sit. By this application of the servant to the door and posts of the master, it was signified that this servant was, as it were, permanently and fixedly bound to the master's household, so that he could never leave that house without the master's permission: so says Theodoret. St. Thomas and Cajetan add that this application and the boring of the ear were established for this servant as a punishment and disgrace for neglecting his liberty, and therefore he was consigned to perpetual servitude.
AND (the master) SHALL BORE HIS EAR WITH AN AWL, — so that by this symbol the servant may be reminded of perpetual obedience, by which he must receive and carry out his master's commands. So says Theodoret. Again, by this symbol the servant was reminded that he was bound to hear and undergo many hard, heavy, and troublesome commands of his master, which would bore through his ears no differently than an awl. The same was established for a female servant, Deuteronomy chapter XV, verse 12.
AND HE SHALL BE HIS SERVANT FOREVER. — "Forever" signifies not only eternity, but also a very long span of time, which for the Hebrews was 50 years. "He shall therefore be a servant forever," that is, he shall be a servant until the 50th year of the jubilee: for in the jubilee all Hebrew servants were manumitted, as is clear from Leviticus XXV, 40: so says St. Jerome on chapter IV to the Galatians, where he adds that olam, that is, "forever," is written here without vav, to signify the age of the jubilee: for when it is written with vav, it often signifies eternity.
Tropologically, this servant is one who wishes to remain in the active life in this world, so that he may become free in the seventh year and in the heavenly jubilee; his ear is bored with an awl when his mind is struck by the subtlety of the fear of God from a preacher: on which matter see more in St. Gregory, homily 3 on Ezekiel.
Verse 7: If Anyone Sells His Daughter as a Handmaid
Namely with a promise of betrothal, by which the master buying a Hebrew daughter as a handmaid promised to take her as a wife, at least as a secondary wife.
SHE SHALL NOT GO OUT AS FEMALE SERVANTS ARE ACCUSTOMED TO GO OUT, — namely, as female servants born from the Gentiles, for example Moabites or Idumeans; for these always remained servants, nor were they freed from servitude in the jubilee, unless they were redeemed by a price, as is clear from Leviticus XXV, 46; or at least unless an eye or tooth had been knocked out by the master: for then on account of the injury and harm done to her she went out free; for this God here establishes in favor of the faith and nation of the Hebrews, so that He might thus provide for the poor daughters of the Hebrews regarding marriages and their state in life.
Verse 8: If She Displeases the Eyes of Her Master
In Hebrew it is, who had betrothed her to himself. More recent authors translate it in the entirely opposite sense: who had not betrothed her, because in Hebrew it is lo, with aleph, which is an adverb of negation. But the interchange of the ehevi letters, and consequently of aleph with vav, is common, and the Masoretes noted several, namely fifteen, places in Scripture in which lo with aleph is used, they say, for lo with vav, that is, to him, or to himself; and the Chaldean and the Septuagint agree that this passage is one of them, as do Vatablus and the more learned Rabbis. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: If the master who bought the Hebrew daughter betrothed her to himself, but afterwards she displeased him, then the master must let her go for free; or, as the Hebrew and Septuagint have it, he must redeem her, that is, free her from servitude, if indeed he used her as a wife; but if not, he shall cause her to be redeemed, that is, he shall sell or hand her over to another Hebrew, on the condition however that he marry her: for he cannot sell her to a foreign people, that is, to the Gentiles, as follows. So says Abulensis.
Verse 10: But If He Takes Another Wife for His Son
As if to say: If the father, besides the daughter whom he bought for his son both as a handmaid and as a wife, gives his son yet another wife, then he shall provide that the former daughter, namely the servant, retains her right in the marriage; and so he shall provide her, first, with marriage rights, that is, the use of marriage; for thus authors distinguish nuptials from marriage, and take them metonymically for the nuptial or marital act, as if to say: The father shall see to it that the son does not deny this servant wife of his the right of conjugal union, but render to her the debt of marriage; this is clear from the Hebrew. Second, he shall provide her with suitable clothing. Third, he shall provide the price of chastity, that is, the food and sustenance owed to a wife. Hence the Hebrew, Chaldean and Septuagint clearly have: Her food, clothing and conjugal rights you shall not diminish. For God commands that, even though a second wife be brought in by the master for his son, the former wife's turn and her right shall stand firm in these three goods of marriage already mentioned; but if he is unwilling to provide those three things, then he shall let her go free, as follows.
Verse 11: If He Does Not Do These Three Things
Not so much the master as the master's son — SHE SHALL GO OUT (the Hebrew daughter bought by him as a handmaid) FREE WITHOUT MONEY. — Take these three things together. Therefore if the son provided food and clothing to the Hebrew servant daughter, but denied her the third, the daughter he had bought had to be released free, and that without payment; similarly, if he provided the second and third but refused the first, or having given the first refused the second, in like manner he had to release the daughter free.
Verse 12: He Who Strikes a Man, Willing to Kill, Shall Die the Death
The Hebrew has more fully: he who strikes a man so that he dies shall be punished with death. For here the penalty of retaliation and death is established against the voluntary homicide. Note: "to strike" is commonly taken in the books of Kings and other historical books in the consummated act, according to Canon 22, for a lethal blow, and it is the same as to kill. Note secondly, "a man," namely both a Gentile and a Jew: for it is false what Rabbi Solomon says, that only he who kills a Jew is guilty under this law and subject to death; for even one who killed a servant was guilty of death, as is clear from verse 20.
Verse 13: But He Who Did Not Lie in Wait
Verse 12 dealt with voluntary homicide; here he deals with accidental homicide. Indeed, Abulensis thinks it deals with purely accidental homicide, namely that which happens without any fault of the killer. But this does not sufficiently agree with what precedes and follows.
I say therefore that this deals with accidental homicide in which, however, some fault of negligence, or imprudence, or even revenge intervened: for to such a person the right of asylum was granted. The Canons among Christians established a similar law and grace of asylum in sacred places for the accidental homicide, and conversely denied the same to the voluntary homicide, and ordered him to be dragged from the altar, as is commanded here in verse 14, as is clear from the chapter Inter alia, title On the Immunity of Churches.
Note: For "God delivered him into his hands," in Hebrew it is, God caused him to fall into his hands, as though in the case of one who kills without thinking, God caused the wicked man to run into his hand or weapon, so that he might pay the deserved penalties for his crimes. For the speech here is about a homicide committed by chance, or from an unforeseen occasion, where the killing was not previously plotted or intended: for then Scripture, according to its custom, refers the killing that happened to the most high providence of God, which orders all human affairs toward either just punishment or reward. Whence it follows that in such cases the just vengeance of God, especially in the old law, was accustomed to lie in wait and to arrange that upon the guilty and criminal this chance and killing would fall. Rightly therefore this killing is attributed not so much to the one who kills as to God, because an effect is not customarily attributed to the incidental cause but to the cause in itself, that is, not to the chance of fortune or to the accidental agent who does not intend this effect, namely the killing; but to God, who directs all causes, even fortuitous ones, and who intended this killing as a punishment and imposed it upon the impious through this chance event. So says Abulensis.
Verse 15: He Who Strikes His Father or His Mother Shall Die the Death
Even non-lethally, on account of the atrocious impiety against a parent.
After this law, some codices and translators immediately add the law about cursing parents. But the Hebrew places first the law about kidnapping; so also the Chaldean, and the Complutensian and Roman Latin editions. Nor is it surprising that in these laws such an orderly sequence is not maintained: for we see this happening in many cases, as is clear in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus: for these laws were written in a miscellaneous fashion, and as if in a military style.
Verse 16: He Who Steals a Man and Sells Him
This is the penalty for kidnapping, that is, the theft of a man, whether he be free or a slave; especially if he is a Hebrew; for the killing of servants, just as of free men, was avenged by death; therefore also kidnapping, especially because the Hebrews were servants only temporarily: for either in the seventh year or in the 50th year of jubilee they became free.
Verse 18: With a Stone or Fist
That is, with any weapon or means: for commonly those who quarrel strike with a stone, which they have at hand, or with their fist.
Verse 19: If He Rises and Walks Abroad Upon His Staff, He Who Struck Him Shall Be Innocent
"Innocent," that is, exempt and free from the retaliatory penalty of death, because by this indication that the one struck walked abroad after receiving the blow, it is presumed that his death came not from the blow but from another cause.
YET SO THAT HE SHALL PAY FOR HIS LOST TIME AND THE EXPENSES OF THE PHYSICIANS. — In Hebrew it is shivto, that is, his sitting, that is, his cessation and lost labors, namely the profit from work that the injured man lost, he shall pay, and he shall see to it that he is healed. For the Hebrew shivto is an infinitive with a suffix, from the root yashav, that is, he sat. Pagninus however translates shivto as his cessation, from the root shavat, that is, he ceased; but the meaning comes to the same thing: for to sit is to cease.
Verse 20: He Who Strikes a Servant
Shall be guilty of the crime — of homicide, and consequently subject to the penalty of death.
Verse 21: But If He Survives One Day or Two, He Shall Not Be Subject to the Penalty
BECAUSE HE IS HIS PROPERTY, — as if to say: Because he is possessed by the striking master, as a servant bought with money. The condition of male and female servants was miserable, especially under harsh masters: hence the law here mitigates the penalty for striking, so that if the master did not strike the servant so grievously that certain death immediately followed, he would not be subject to the penalty, because he killed his own slave, whom he possesses like an ox or a horse. And in the same way civil law says the body of a servant, just like the body of an animal, can be valued at a price; but a free body receives no valuation, as is clear from the last law, Digest, On Those Who Poured Out or Threw Down.
Verse 22: If Men Quarrel and One Strikes a Pregnant Woman
Who wished to intervene between the quarrelers, or to help her husband.
Verse 23: But If Her Death Follows — the Law of Retaliation
He shall render life for life (his own life for the life of the woman whom he killed), eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc. — The same judgment applied if the striker did not kill the pregnant woman, but knocked out of her the child already animated, so as to have killed it. For such a person, as an infanticide, was consequently guilty of death just as much as a matricide. The Seventy teach and indicate this, who for the Hebrew ason, which our Translator renders as death, seem to have read ishon, that is, a little man (as in Flemish we call a boy manneken); for they translate: if the child be fully formed, that is, if it be shaped and formed, as if to say: If the offspring has perfect limbs, so that it is fully formed and like a certain small man, or little man, then he who knocks it out of the pregnant mother by his blow shall give life for life, that is, his own life, of which the soul is the cause, he shall give for the life of the offspring, so that just as he knocked it out and killed it, so he too shall be killed. From these words of the Seventy it is clear that the fetus, as soon as it is formed, is animated; for he who knocked it out is therefore regarded and punished here as a homicide: physicians teach the same.
For a tropological interpretation about quarrelsome teachers who through their disputes and controversies injure and scandalize the Church and the faithful, see Origen and Ambrose on chapter XXII of Luke.
From this law by parity, God then introduces a general law of retaliation for all other cases, saying: "Eye for eye," etc., as if to say: If anyone gouges out another's eye, let him too be deprived of an eye; whoever knocks out a tooth, let him lose a tooth; whoever a hand, etc. Which law, says St. Augustine, book XII Against Faustus, chapter XXV: "is not the fuel of vengeance and fury, but a just boundary;" for, as Tertullian says, book II Against Marcion, chapter XVIII: "The permission of retribution was a prohibition of provocation;" for Rhadamanthus rightly pronounces in Aristotle, book V of the Ethics: "If a man has acted unjustly, let him suffer the same," if indeed the persons are of the same rank and equal condition: for otherwise if a king strikes a peasant, he cannot justly be struck back by him. Hence also by this very law, verse 26, striking a servant is excepted. So among the laws of the twelve tables was also this: "If he has broken a limb, unless he makes peace with him, let there be retaliation." See Gellius, book XX.
Verse 26: And Makes Them One-Eyed
Namely, having knocked out one eye, makes them one-eyed or monocular. Hence the Seventy translate, ektyflōsē, that is, has blinded. The Hebrew means the same. Therefore "luscus" (one-eyed) is taken here differently than it is commonly understood, and in this popular verse: "The one-eyed man sees sideways, but the squinter looks upward, the blind lack their eyeballs, the sightless are deprived of light."
Verse 28: If an Ox Gores a Man or a Woman
IT SHALL BE STONED, — not on account of the ox's fault (for this cannot exist in a brute animal), but for the terror and example of men, so that by this men may be more deterred from homicide. Hence even today pigs and other animals, if they kill children or people, are hanged or slaughtered. God established a similar law in Genesis IX, 5. For the same reason God forbade in this verse the eating of the flesh of a homicidal ox, lest they be defiled by an animal polluted by the killing of a man, or lest they take on its ferocity by eating it. Moreover, what is said and established here and in what follows about the ox, understand the same about a goring ram, a kicking horse, and every beast that has killed a man; for here the argument from parity and proportion holds.
Verse 29: From Yesterday and the Day Before — the Goring Ox
That is, from the preceding time; it is a synecdoche. So St. Augustine, Locutions 93.
THEY WARNED — that the ox was a gorer, as if to say: They declared that the ox was a gorer, and thus warned the master of the danger, so that he should confine this ox lest it strike someone. The Romans, according to Plutarch in Roman Questions, tied hay to the horns of goring oxen, by which passers-by were warned to beware of it; and this because from satiety oxen and horses become wanton and aggressive; whence the proverb: "He has hay on his horns: he strikes with his horn, beware," which is said of a man prepared to take vengeance and difficult to oppose, such as M. Crassus was before Caesar opposed him.
AND DID NOT CONFINE IT. — In Hebrew, and did not guard it.
Verse 30: But If a Price Is Imposed on Him
By the judge, who upon examining the case, on account of his slight negligence or fault, imposes upon him not a capital penalty but a fine, especially because the parents and relatives desire such a fine, then this master of the homicidal ox shall pay and settle this fine imposed on him by the judge.
Verse 33: If Anyone Opens a Cistern and Digs One
In Hebrew it is or digs: for one who uncovers and opens a covered pit is equally guilty as one who freshly digs one, if he does not cover it again. These and other laws of this chapter and the next were transcribed into Canon Law, as is clear from book V of the Decretals, title 36 On Injuries and Damage Done; for they are in accord with natural law and equity.
Verse 35: If One Man's Ox Hurts Another's Ox
Note: This law speaks only of the case where an ox killed an ox, not about the case where an ox killed a sheep or a calf; for then it was not fair to divide the ox for a sheep or calf, which is of less value than an ox; hence then the judges decreed a fine proportionate to the damage done. What is said here of an ox, understand the same by parity of a ram, a horse, and of any animal.
For the tropological interpretation see Rabanus, who interprets all these things about a bad disciple and his teacher, whether negligent or innocent.