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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Exodus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God’s Identity and Power
Redemption and Deliverance
The Covenant
Mediators and the Priesthood
Summary
Analysis
God gives Moses further commands to give the people. If someone purchases a male Hebrew slave, that slave must be set free in their seventh year of service. The exception is if a slave freely decides to stay, out of love for his master, in which case the master should pierce the slave’s ear as a sign of this bond before God.
The legislation assumes that Israelites might own slaves. This kind of slavery was different from the form known in U.S. history. There was a voluntary aspect: most commonly, people became slaves through debt, in which case enslaving a person could be seen as a merciful way of supporting them. However, masters are expected to remember their own enslavement in Egypt and treat slaves humanely.
Themes
If a man sells his daughter as a slave, and she’s taken by her master as a wife, the master has no right to sell her to someone else just because she displeases him; that would be unjust. If he marries her to a son, she should be regarded as a daughter-in-law; or, if he takes an additional wife for himself, none of her rights should be diminished.
Sometimes, a poor man might “sell” his daughter to a wealthy man because he couldn’t afford to provide for her. These laws are meant to protect such wives from exploitation.
Themes
Anyone who willfully kills another person, kills or curses their mother or father, or kidnaps someone shall be put to death. If someone injures another person in a quarrel but doesn’t kill them, they should merely compensate the person. If a slaveowner beats a slave to death, he should be punished. If a pregnant woman gets injured while people are fighting and subsequently suffers a miscarriage, the woman’s husband may demand a fine, and if any further harm befalls her, the person who injured her must pay in kind (“life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth”). A slave whose eye or tooth is destroyed by their owner must be set free.
These laws deal with various kinds of physical harm. Again, the laws are meant to promote harmony in a young society figuring out how to live together in the wilderness. Many are intended to restrain cruelty and violence. There’s also an emphasis on proportionality. For instance, the phrase “eye for [an] eye” (sometimes called the lex talionis, or law of retaliation) is actually meant to ensure that a punishment fits the crime, discouraging excessive acts of retribution.
Themes
If an ox gores someone to death, the ox should be stoned to death, but the owner isn’t liable unless the ox has gored someone in the past. In that case, the owner should also be put to death. A person who leaves a pit uncovered, resulting in the death of someone’s animal, must make restitution. If someone’s ox kills another’s ox, then the live ox should be sold and its price divided between the two.
These laws deal with property, especially livestock, which was vital to survival in an agricultural society. They emphasize individual responsibility and take various factors into account, like a person’s prior knowledge of an animal’s behavior.
Themes
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