Exodus 21

ox.

I challenge you, if you ever have had someone do a sermon on Exodus 21, the going ox, I'd like to hear it.

Actually, I don't think I would like to hear it.

That's the whole point.

Now, remember, and again, this is kind of like a class in the sense that what I've done before, this is building upon that.

So what have I said about biblical laws? They are in the same cognitive environment as the rest of the ancient Near East.

They are, well, in fact, the laws in Exodus 21, where we're starting here, are considered verdicts.

And so these are laws that judges are supposed to use to implement their own decisions on things.

There's a big, big difference.

Now, for example, we see in Exodus 21, verses 5 to 6, And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges, and he shall bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve forever.

So piercing of the ear, marking as a free will act.

Servant free free will slave it could be the word but he's marked and he receives higher Respect a higher placement in the family.

My last point.

Whom the Son hath set free is free indeed.

Is a bondservant or a slave free? Because we just read Exodus 21, 5-6, Deuteronomy 15, 16-17.

And it says, I don't want my freedom.

And then finally, the most generous view is the covenantal vow view.

It's popularized by a Cambridge scholar named David Instone-Brewer in 2002, an evangelical, and he argued from Exodus 21 that there's a series of virtues that sit behind the marriage covenant, like care, non-neglect, love, etc., and that these become the criteria through which a marriage's legitimacy might be judged.

You see the spectrum of view.

One is not permissive at all for divorce.

That's consistently the three times in the New Testament.

Go to Exodus chapter number 21.

We're going to look at the first use of this word, ransom.

Ransom.

But many times it sets the tone for the remainder of the Bible.

This is one of them.

Exodus chapter number 21, if you look in verse number 29, actually let's go to verse 28 because it sets the scene.

"...if an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned and his flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall be quit." That's discharged from responsibility.

If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned.

That is Exodus 21, 32 with the part of 30 shekels.

That whole section starts in verse 28.

Gotcha.

But we can confidently say it's not talking about chattel slavery.

The thing with the Old Testament, the thing with the verses that I'm about to read in Exodus 21, these are verses that people go to and say, "Hey, this God is condoning slavery and he wants people to be seen as property.

He doesn't want people to be seen as made in the image of God." We can clearly see that's not true by interpreting scripture with scripture and going overall, but I'm gonna read some of the kinda like, these are, this might seem a little bit more niche.

Maybe you are more interested and heard more about the flood, and maybe you haven't necessarily heard about, um, the aspects of slavery.

Got it.

Okay.

Uh, d- Exodus, sorry, Exodus 21, starting in verse 18.

"If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with a fist..." Crap, that's the wrong verse.

You have the right to ask them to do things but not to be oppressive.

Exodus 21, as I told you earlier, said, "'Whoever steals a man and sells him or is found in possession of him shall be put to death.'" So yes, in the Old Testament there were servants and masters, yes.

But God didn't say it's wrong to do that.

Somebody's got to run things and somebody's got to work.

For example, if you ever hit your servant and hurt his eye, he was free.

If you ever hit your servant and injured him in any way, he could go free.

If you laid a hand of cruelly, Exodus 21, 26 and 27 says, if you laid a hand of cruelly on your servant and affected him in any way, he was free from you.

That's right.