Exodus 21:1-32 Study Guide: Laws About Life

Community Group Study Guide — Laws About Life
Exodus 21:1-32

Study Information:
The Old Testament Law can be one of the most complicated parts of our Bible to understand. We finished exploring the 10 Commandments and now God turns to giving his people laws related to slavery, crimes, worship and what to do when someone is injured or harmed. This can be confusing for us because of how foreign some of these concepts are to our modern culture. For example, Exodus 21:7-11 discuss what to do if you were to sell your daughter to marriage. This was seemingly common practice in the ancient world but is an abhorrent idea to our modern ears! Also, this passage talks about slavery as if it is an “ok” thing, does the Bible support slavery? When approaching these laws it is really important to see how they differed from the legal codes of the surrounding nations and to understand that many of these laws are given by God to respond to human sin, so rather than painting the ideal God is pointing his people towards a righteous response when things are broken. . 

The Complexity of the Law
Matthew 19:3-12
Jesus gives us an interpretive principle for the Old Testament Law when he was questioned by the Pharisees about divorce. Jesus taught that divorce was not permitted, except perhaps on the grounds of sexual immorality and then explained to the Pharisees why God permitted divorce in the Law. Malachi 2:16 that God hates divorce so why would the Law of Mose allow it? Jesus’s answer was that  “God permitted a certificate of divorce because of the hardness of the human heart!” This can be challenging thing for us to accept, why wouldn’t God just tell us what was right and what was wrong and leave it at that? Why would God permit something he hated because of hard heartedness? It appears that the Law addresses the proclivity of humans towards sin and then pointing us towards what is a righteous response in a broken world. To say it another way, God appears to be working in the murkiness of life in a sinful world and desiring to limit sin and brokenness.

This is why Paul can say in Romans 7:12 that the Law is “holy, righteous and good” and that “if it had not been for the Law I would not have down sin…. when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died (Romans 7:7-9).” The Law is holy, righteous and good but we know from the teaching of Jesus that rather than it being God’s complete ideal, it was an accommodation to real broken situations and it reveled our sin and need for Jesus. We can see this in how Exodus 21:1-32 gives us laws around life, responding to crime and the need for restitution for physical damages. God’s desire was not for people to be so poor they had to sell themselves into slavery, or for daughters to be sold into marriage; yet in the Law we get a restriction on how to seek what is good in these situations. We cannot cover every verse in this chapter but let’s look at how these laws around life are designed to limit sin and to preserve life in a broken world. 

Limiting Sin
Exodus 21:1-11 
How should followers of Jesus address the prevalence of slavery in the ancient world? Should they participate in it and if they do should they treat slaves the same way their neighboring nations treated slaves? We’re uncomfortable today with slavery because of the horrendous nature of the Atlantic slave trade that subjugated Africans to property and abuse in the early history for America. We are right to be angry about that part of our nation’s history. It appears that God would be angry about it as well since he condemned acts like that in Exodus 21:16 “whoever steals a man and sells him…, shall be put to death.” 

Slavery in Exodus 21 appears to be very different than what we’ve experienced in recent history. In the ancient world, with no social welfare system, if you found yourself in extreme poverty you’d often sell yourself as a servant/slave to another. This provided food, clothing and a level of safety that you would otherwise not have. Moreover, you were afforded a higher level of human dignity that you may otherwise receive. Likewise, this slavery was not race based (Exodus 21:1). 

Notice that these laws limited abuse and sin related to there being a slave-master relationship and these limits did not exist in other countries in the ancient world. First, there was a limit to how long one could be a slave. They’d serve for six years and go free on the seventh. Second, they were permitted to marry. This is an element of volition and choice not given in other nations. The wife and children would be under the same 6 years of service, which seems like a big hardship. However, many people enjoyed the protections and freedom from poverty and opted to stay in a household where they were marked with an awl. This image gets picked up in Revelation as a mark for those who have devoted themselves to God in faith. 

Probably a more difficult passage for us is Exodus 21:7-11, but this shows us a third aspect of how these laws limited sin in that one was forbidden to show favoritism. Specifically this passage addresses, “what if a family is too poor to afford to have their daughter married off?” In the ancient world the family would need to provide a bride price and payment of wedding for a marriage to occur. We do things differently today and that is a good thing. But what would a poor family do? Often they’d sell their daughter to be married and sometimes that included polygamy. Jesus affirmed in the gospels that this was NOT God’s design for marriage, but what do you do in a situation like this? Exodus 21:10, the husband was not allowed to diminish the food, clothing or marital rights of one wife for another. It is too bad these laws came after what we read with Jacob in Genesis 29-30, much harm could have been prevented between Rachel and Leah! 

We are not under this law as followers of Jesus but there is wisdom here around how we treat people who are subject to us and a strong caution against showing favoritism. 

Preserving Life in a Broken World
Exodus 21:22-32
A second aspect of Laws around Life is how they seek to preserve life in a broken world. Stuff happens like accidents, crime and negligence. What is the godly response to these situations? First, there are times when a life is required for a life. Exodus 21:14 talks about premeditated murder and how capital punishment is a just response. Yet there are many situations where life is lost and it was not premeditated. In the case of manslaughter or accidental death one was to flee to a City of Refuge for protection from retaliation so that the details of the accident or crime could be worked out (Exodus 21:12-13). Likewise, if someone strikes another and they lose the ability to work, the assailant was required to make restitution for that. We also see a strong stance against harming an unborn child and how that unborn life is treated as sacred (Exodus 21:22-24). That passage also gives us the famous “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” teaching. That teaching seeks to limit destruction and retribution so that if someone’s tooth was knocked out you could not demand the other’s life. Again, in the surrounding nations, often any sort of loss of eye or tooth would come at the cost of capital punishment, especially if there was a power dynamic at play. God limited retribution and the loss of life through his Law. More can be said, but this desire to preserve life was also applied to situations of negligence like someone who owns an animal or pet that is known to harm others, the owner is morally and criminally responsible and must pay for damages done and/or face punishment for their negligence.

God desires for his followers to preserve and care for life in a broken world. We can also learn from these laws about our personal responsibility to pay for damages to others based on accidents or negligence. 

At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week? 

Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 21:1-32

What aspect of these laws do you find most curious or challenging for you to grasp given our modern world?

How do these laws show us God working in the midst of a broken world to limit sin?

Why do you think God would need to limit our ability to seek revenge with passages like Exodus 21:23-25? Do you think many people want a punishment that is more than “an eye for an eye?”

Have you experienced times where you had to seek out restitution when wronged? How about times when you’ve been completely forgiven? How does the gospel help us approach pursuing restitution and offering forgiveness when we’ve been wronged?