EXODUS 21

LAWS FOR SERVANTS + PERSONAL INJURIES  

God provides specific laws for how to handle situations involving servants, harm to others, and responsibility for damage. These laws reflect a very different cultural and historical context from our own. While the Bible regulated slavery in ancient Israel, it does not endorse slavery as we understand it today. These instructions were meant to provide structure and limit harm in a broken world, not to promote injustice.

The principle of “an eye for an eye” appears here, not to encourage revenge, but to establish fair and limited justice. It was meant to ensure the punishment fit the offense rather than exceed it.