Exodus 21:20,21

EXODUS—NOTE ON Exodus 21:20 These verses provide a general rule relating to cases in which a slave has been severely beaten by his master (strikes his slave... with a rod). The instruction not to avenge a slave who survives such a beating because the slave is his money relates only to the financial circumstances of the one he serves; it is neither a description of how a slave as a person is to be understood, nor a prescription for how a slave is to be treated. The expectation for how Israelites were to treat one another (and particularly those who were typically oppressed or overlooked) is indicated in the repeated statements at the end of this section of laws: “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him” (Exodus 22:21; Exodus 23:6). If a sojourner (resident alien) is to be well treated, how much more an Israelite.