From just these verses, or even just from one of them, many vital things are clarified very early in the Torah's detailed moral prescriptions that go beyond the scope of what the words themselves state. While the explicit wording is specifically about permanent injury to male or female servants deserving the immediate liberation of the servant, the ramifications go far beyond just this very particular sort of situation related to slavery. For starters, any permanent injury would deserve release, even to body parts other than an eye or a tooth. The permanent mutilation or loss of a person's fingers, toes, ears, nose, and other bodily features would also merit the same outcome, for these verses are really about a category of injury rather than only the two examples given. Other than Exodus 21:26-27 presenting one of many strict moral boundaries for the treatment of slaves specifically (see also verses like Deuteronomy 5:12-15, 15:12-18, and 23:15-16), this passage touches very obviously or more subtly on the real Biblical stances on other vital ethical issues.
Gender Equality
It is clear from Exodus 21:26-27 and from many other verses in the same chapter (21:15, 17, 20-21, 28-32) that the Bible is blatantly affirmative of how men and women are equal and thus deserve equal treatment (as would be necessitated by Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 already), including when it comes to physical harshness. Here, it is explicitly taught that to strike a man unjustly is no more or less sinful than an unjust blow given to a woman. Men should not be treated more harshly than women because they are men, and vice versa. The Bible goes far beyond merely not saying such hypocritical and thus irrationalistic nonsense as that women are supposedly free to hit men at a whim, but never the other way around, or that a servant girl can be harmed because she is "just" a woman or a slave. The physical mistreatment of one gender is just as severe as that of the other.
In the King James Version and certain other translations, Exodus 21:26-27 also refer to the owner and both the male and female slave using male words, although the original Hebrew text and English translations like the KJV still acknowledge both male and female victims in the wording before defaulting to these pronouns. Many other passages in the Torah and elsewhere do this. Thus, whenever it is not plain from the direct wording itself or the broader context that a genuinely male person is in view, the Biblical text in its original languages and older English translations is still referring to both men and women, as if it would not already be obvious to a rationalistic person that unless there is actual denial in a given case, whatever it says about the rights and obligations of men would be the case with what it teaches about women, and inversely as well.
See also passages like Exodus 20:8-11, Leviticus 20:15-16, 27, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, 17:2-7, and more that directly teach that the same things are sins for both genders and that both deserve the same punishments for their sins, which would necessitate that the woman who owns slaves should not treat them in the condemned manner even aside from all the other confirmations of this.
Physical Abuse
On its own and alongside the other laws dealing with assaults of various kinds in Exodus and elsewhere in the Torah, Exodus 21:26-27 emphasizes that no one is to be physically mistreated. If slaves have this right and should never be treated in this way, the same world have to be true of everyone else. Though these two verses are about a particular kind of injustice against slaves--physical abuse resulting in permanent injury--they are relevant to marriage. If a slave goes free upon being treated this way, no matter their remaining debt (Exodus 22:3) or years of service (Deuteronomy 15:12), then a husband or wife is free to leave their marriage if they receive unjust blows (those outside of self-defense) as well.
Divorce
By extension, Exodus 21:26-27 would have this ramification for divorce even if Exodus 21:9-11, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, and 24:1-4 were not included in the Bible, which respectively allow divorce for neglect (and thus for any greater sin than this) and for displeasure arising when one's spouse has committed literally any sin at all (yes, Deuteronomy 24 would encompass any moral indecency). The spouse who is physically abused can stay if they prefer, but the words of Jesus in Matthew 19 on ending marriages have been greatly misunderstood. This is the same Jesus who said in the same book of the Bible that he did not come to abolish Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; see also 15:1-20), so he is not against divorce for any of the reasons permitted in the Torah or any additional reasons that follow logically from them.
Lex Talionis
One example by itself already refutes the idea that the Bible says the just punishment is doing to people what they have done to others in all cases of mistreatment. Lex Talionis, summarized by the phrase "eye for eye", is exclusively reserved, as Exodus 221:22-25 already clarified just before verses 26-27, to general permanent injuries (see also Leviticus 24:19-21). Nonlethal, nonsexual physical assault without permanent injury is punished by monetary means (Exodus 21:18-19, 22) or, concerning the attack of a person's parents by their child, by execution, no matter the severity of the assault (Exodus 21:15). Kidnapping, which can involve direct physical contact, is also a capital sin (Exodus 21:16).
Since showing verbal contempt for a judge of Mosaic Law is likewise deserving of death, the same would have to be the case for attacking them (Deuteronomy 17:12). Sexual assaults are punished with either loss of the offending hand in instances short of rape (Deuteronomy 25:11-12) or death for rape itself (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), which can be committed by or against either gender. Because servants often worked to pay off debt, such as when they did not have the means to pay restitution for specific sins like those of Exodus 21:18-19 or Numbers 5:5-7 (and as Exodus 22:3 acknowledges), the cancellation of their full leftover debt and immediate freedom from their abuser are what the Bible prescribes for them as according to Exodus 21:26-27. Apart from the fact that corporal punishment should also never go above 40 lashes no matter what (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), it is clear many times over with miscellaneous examples that it is unjust to universally do to people as they have done to others, even in some circumstances where permanent injury is inflicted in a nonsexual assault. Exodus 21:26-27 by itself still affirms this.
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