Exodus 21:1

_NOW THESE ARE THE JUDGMENTS WHICH THOU SHALT SET BEFORE THEM._ Now these are the judgments, х_ HAMISHPAATIYM_ (H4941)] - the statutes, ordinances; Septuagint, ta dikaioomata, ordinances (cf. Hebrews 9:1, where that word is used); rules instituted for regulating the procedure of judges and magistrates in the decision of causes and the trial of criminals. The government of the Israelites being a theocracy, these public authorities were the servants of the Divine Sovereign, and subject to His direction. Most of the laws here noticed were primitive usages, founded on principles of natural equity, and incorporated, with modifications and improvements into the Mosaic code. They are enumerated without strict regard to order, the record comprising, it is presumable, the principal acts ordained for settling the causes which were most fr

1._Now these are the judgments_. Both passages contain the same appointment, viz., that as to the Hebrews slavery must end at the seventh year; for God would have the children of Abraham, although obliged to sell themselves, to differ from heathen and ordinary slaves. Their enfranchisement is, therefore, enjoined, but with an exception, which Moses expresses in the first passage but omits in the latter, _i e_. , that if the slave had married a bond-woman, and had begotten children, they should remain with the master, and that he should alone be free. Whence it appears how hard was the condition of slaves, since it could not be mitigated without an unnatural exception (_sine prodigio_;) for nothing could be more opposed to nature than that a husband, forsaking his wife and children, should remove himself elsewhere. But the tie of slavery could only be loosed by divorce, that is to say, by...

1-11 The laws in this chapter relate to the fifth and sixth commandments; and though they differ from our times and customs, nor are they binding on us, yet they explain the moral law, and the rules of natural justice. The servant, in the state of servitude, was an emblem of that state of bondage to sin, Satan, and the law, which man is brought into by robbing God of his glory, by the transgression of his precepts. Likewise in being made free, he was an emblem of that liberty wherewith Christ, the Son of God, makes free from bondage his people, who are free indeed; and made so freely, without money and without price, of free grace....

CHAPTER XXI _Laws concerning_ servants. _They shall serve for only seven_ _years_, 1, 2. _If a servant brought a wife to servitude with him, both should go_ _out free on the_ seventh _year_, 3. _If his master had given him a wife, and she bore him children, he_ _might go out free an the seventh year, but his wife and children_ _must remain, as the property of the master_, 4. _If, through love to his master, wife, and children, he did not_ _choose to avail himself of the privilege granted by the law, of_ going out fr

JUDGMENTS - i. e. decisions of the law....

EXPOSITION THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT.—_Continued_. I. _Laws connected with the rights of persons_ (Exodus 21:1). The regulations of this section concern— 1. Slavery (Exodus 21:2); 2. Murder and other kinds of homicide (Exodus 21:12-2 and Exodus 21:20, Exodus 21:21); 3. Man-stealing ...

NOW THESE ARE THE JUDGMENTS,.... The judicial laws respecting the civil state of the people of Israel, so called because they are founded on justice and equity, and are according to the judgment of God, whose judgment is according to truth; and because they are such by which the commonwealth of Israel was to be judged or governed, and were to be the rule of their conduct to one another, and a rule of judgment to their judges in the execution of judgment and justice among them: WHICH THOU SHALL SET BEFORE THEM; besides the ten commands before delivered. They were spoken by God himself in the hearing of the people; these were delivered to Moses after he went up to the mount again, at the request of the people, to be their mediator, to be by him set before them as the rule of their behaviour, and to enjoin them the observance of them; in order to which he was not only to rehearse them, but...

CHAPTER 21 DIFFERENT JUDGMENTS _ 1. Master and servant (Exodus 21:1)_ 2. Concerning injury to the person (Exodus 21:12) 3. Concerning property (Exodus 21:33) The Three Chapter s which follow the giving of the Ten Commandments give the practical application of the Decalogue in the daily life. The duties towards the fellowman are demonstrated in part. There are seven sections to these three Chapter s; each section contains ten precepts. The servant occupies the first place. He was to obtain his freedom for nothing after serving six years. In Deuteronomy we read that the master is commanded not to let him go empty-handed, but give him of his flock, his threshing floor and his winepress.

EXODUS 21:1 E. THE JUDGMENTS. This is best taken as the heading of a fresh collection, The Judgments (p. 184), consisting of case-law, mainly about property, and containing some striking parallels with the CODE OF HAMMURABÎ (_see_ p. 51, HDB, vol. 5, pp. 584- 612, and Johns-' _Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts, and Letters,_ pp. 44- 68). The Bab. code was much longer, containing 248 laws, and is represented as given by the seated sun-god Shamash to the king standing before him. The Code deals only with civil and criminal laws, not with morals and religion, and the chief parallels are with the Judgments (_see_ Driver, CB, 420ff.). The Judgments do not borrow from the Code, but they are often too like it to be independent (_e.g._ in the case of the vicious ox, Exodus 21:28 f

Chapter s 21-23 are an expansion of chapter 20....