Passage: Exodus 21:7-36

The Big Idea

Israel’s civil laws may look strange to us, but read closely, they shout one message: people are precious to God. Women, servants, the unborn, even those who cause accidents all receive protection. Life is so valuable that murder is a capital crime and kidnapping is punished by death. These laws also picture deeper truths: Jesus our Redeemer, and the fact that everyone serves some master. In God’s kingdom, real freedom is joyfully serving the Master who is also our Father.

People Are Precious

“These are the judgments you are to set before them” (Exodus 21:1).

These civil laws cover a wide range of situations: theft, murder, assault, debt and more.

The main lesson: people are valuable to God. He wants every single person to know they’re precious to Him.

Your place in society or your abilities don’t change your worth in God’s sight.
You are valuable and loved.
He cares about you, whatever you may think, even if you’ve had a hard life.
These laws show God is mindful of the weak and lowly.
They show He’s compassionate and merciful when we make mistakes.
They show He sees every injustice and will deal with it.

“But am I really valuable to God?”

You’re made in God’s own image (Genesis 1:26-27).
You were fearfully and wonderfully made, and all your days were written in God’s book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:13-16).
God chose His children in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).
We are God’s own possession, sealed by His Spirit, with an inheritance as His children (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Notice the words: we are made, were written, were chosen, are His possession, have an inheritance.

All by grace.
Not earned or deserved.
Given freely.
Your value is added by God’s grace.

The Value of a Young Woman (Exodus 21:7-11)

If a man sold his daughter as a servant, she wasn’t to go free the way male servants did. If she didn’t please the master who had intended her for himself, he had to let her be redeemed. He had no right to sell her to foreigners, because he had broken faith with her.

Ancient cultures generally didn’t value women. This law was a merciful change.
A poor family might arrange for a daughter to serve in her future husband’s household, a kind of working toward the marriage arrangement, and a chance for the families to see if it was a good match.
Sometimes the family would then never follow through on the marriage, which was devastating for the young woman. She’d served for nothing.
God said no. If they didn’t keep their commitment, they couldn’t profit from her. She was to be redeemed: her family could pay to bring her home.
That reminds us of our Redeemer. Jesus paid our debt and came to us when we were slaves, in more debt than we could imagine.
Have you been betrayed or let down by someone who changed their mind about you? Jesus can use that heartbreak to show you His faithfulness.

If he had her marry his son, he had to treat her as a daughter, not a slave. If he married another woman, he couldn’t reduce her food, clothing or marital rights. If he failed in these three things, she could go free without paying anything.

God protected a young woman in a vulnerable situation.
Perhaps her own family was gone, and the man she thought would care for her turned out to be unfaithful.
God’s law provided for her. The household remained responsible for her, or she went free.
This made broken commitments a very serious thing in Israel.

Murder (Exodus 21:12-14)

“Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.”

Murder was a capital crime. Why? Because God values the life that was taken.
I keep saying that because the enemy never stops trying to convince you of the opposite: that God doesn’t care, isn’t involved, is far away. Not true.

“But if he didn’t lie in wait, and God let it happen by his hand, I will appoint a place where he can flee.”

God doesn’t put accidents in the same category as murder.
God values the life of the one who caused an accident too.
Love is messy. It can be uncomfortable to show mercy to someone who accidentally ruined a life. But God did. He provided cities of refuge where the one who killed accidentally could live (Numbers 35).
They had to leave their old life behind and trust that place of safety. If they rejected that offer of mercy, they faced the consequences.

“But if a man schemes and kills his neighbor deliberately, take him even from My altar to be put to death.”

The altar was where people came to God. Some might run there to plead for mercy.
God said no amount of sorrow after premeditated murder cancels the penalty. He can’t simply let it go, because He valued the life that was taken.

This may stir some deep guilt. Maybe there’s a life you had a part in ending, perhaps even an abortion in your past, and you feel the weight of it. You’re sorry. I understand. Hear this: God did value that life, and your conscience is right to grieve. But praise God for His mercy. Jesus, in love, took the death penalty we deserved. There is complete forgiveness and cleansing at the cross for every sin we bring to Him (1 John 1:9; Romans 8:1).

Parents and Kidnapping (Exodus 21:15-17)

“Whoever strikes his father or mother shall surely be put to death.” God values parents.
“Whoever kidnaps someone and sells him, or still has him when caught, shall surely be put to death.” The kind of slavery built on kidnapping, like the transatlantic slave trade, was exactly what God’s law condemned as a capital crime. God values every life.
“Whoever curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death.” This was serious contempt and threat, not a passing disrespectful word.

Personal Injury (Exodus 21:18-19)

If two men fought and one injured the other, who didn’t die but was laid up, then got up and walked around with a staff, the attacker wasn’t put to death, but had to pay for the lost time and see that he was fully healed.

Very fair. You pay for their lost wages and their medical care.

The Value of Servants (Exodus 21:20-21)

“If a man strikes his male or female servant with a rod so that he dies under his hand, he must be punished.”

Servants have the same value as anyone else. You can’t treat them as less, and certainly not kill them.

“But if the servant survives a day or two, he isn’t to be punished, for the servant is his money.”

This verse trips people up. Does God see people as property? No.
This law concerns how judges determined intent in a death. If the servant lived for a while, the government wasn’t to treat it as murder.
God isn’t approving of beating servants. He’s restricting masters’ power. Remember, these people had just come out of Egypt, where all they’d known was brutal slavery.
“He is his money” means the master would bear the loss of the servant’s work. In a world without bank accounts or machines, a worker was the household’s most important economic asset. To devalue a servant was to suffer for it.
And this was only the civil penalty. God Himself sees every act of cruelty.

Whose servant are you? (Romans 6)

“The servant is his master’s”? That gets my attention. People are supposed to be free!

But the Bible doesn’t hesitate to step on my toes about how I think things should be.

Paul writes: Don’t offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but offer yourselves to God as those brought from death to life. Sin will not be your master, because you aren’t under law but under grace. Shall we sin, then, because we’re under grace? Certainly not! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you’ve obeyed from the heart the teaching you were entrusted to, and having been set free from sin, you’ve become slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:13-18).

Slaves belong to their master because they do their master’s will.

“People are supposed to be free!” Why do we think that?
God created us to serve Him, to use our creativity and labor to do His will.
We wanted freedom from that “restriction,” so we rebelled and chose our own will.
Freedom has been twisted to mean “free to do whatever I want, even against my Creator and Judge.”
Freedom in God’s kingdom is serving God. We’re delivered from serving sin and self, to serve God.

“But that’s so restrictive! I don’t want to have to serve God.”

What if my pen rebelled against my will?

Only when it’s completely surrendered to my hand can it do what it was created to do.
It might have big dreams about changing the world, but it can’t do anything by itself.
Its pride would only keep it away from my hand. (Sometimes I can’t find it.)
But surrendered to me, it can do amazing things: write a sermon, a letter that brings healing, a check that meets a need. It can become my instrument to change the world with all my abilities.
Oh, if we would only surrender to our Master’s will!

“Sin will not be your master.”

We don’t have to fear sin if it isn’t our master.
Who’s your master? Whoever you surrender to.
We’re all servants spiritually, either of sin or of God. If you think you have no master, you’re serving the deception of self-fulfillment, which is sin.

But the gospel sets us free to serve God and His will alone.

Are you God’s servant? When you make a decision, is your first thought, “What does my Master want?”

And your Master is also your Father. His burden is light. Serving Him is a joy that never fades. Yet we recoil at the word “slave,” and run from His will at the first chance.

The Value of the Unborn (Exodus 21:22-25)

If men were fighting and hit a pregnant woman so that she gave birth prematurely but there was no serious injury, the one responsible was fined as her husband demanded and the judges allowed. But if there was serious injury, the penalty was life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Can you see the value God places on a baby?
God always defends the weak. He always stands up for those who can’t defend themselves.
So should we.
(“Eye for eye” set a limit on punishment for the courts: justice proportionate to the harm, not personal revenge, as Jesus later made clear in Matthew 5:38-39.)

Injuring a Servant (Exodus 21:26-27)

If a master struck his servant’s eye and destroyed it, he had to let the servant go free for the eye. If he knocked out a tooth, the servant went free for the tooth.

Even a tooth! That strongly discouraged any harsh treatment.
In God’s kingdom, “servanthood” was meant to look more like employment or family than slavery.

Dangerous Animals (Exodus 21:28-32)

If an ox gored someone to death, the ox was stoned and its meat not eaten, but the owner wasn’t held responsible. But if the ox had a habit of goring and the owner had been warned but didn’t keep it penned, the owner was also liable to death, though he could pay a ransom for his life instead. If the ox gored a servant, the owner paid the master thirty shekels of silver.

These laws teach the principles of intent and negligence.
God values people above animals.
Thirty shekels of silver was the price of a servant. Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15; Zechariah 11:12-13), the price of a slave, because He came as the perfect Servant. Another picture of our Savior hidden in the law.

Responsibility (Exodus 21:33-36)

If someone opened a pit and didn’t cover it, and an ox or donkey fell in, the pit’s owner had to pay the animal’s owner. If one man’s ox killed another’s, they sold the live ox and split the money and the dead animal. But if the ox was known to be dangerous and the owner hadn’t penned it, he had to pay ox for ox.

Be responsible with your oxen. Pen up your dangerous animals.
Because God values people, responsibility matters.

Many people today don’t want to be responsible. They want to live their lives and believe they aren’t affecting anyone. False. We deeply affect each other.

When you neglect gathering with God’s people, we suffer. God has chosen you to serve and love His people, and the body of Christ needs every one of us (1 Corinthians 12:21-27).

“I’m just going to check out tonight.” We need to be careful how much we focus on our own stuff. God will ask what we did with what He gave us (Matthew 25:14-30).

We don’t need more programs to reach our community. We need courage to follow God’s leading. There are wide-open opportunities to serve: children, youth, the hungry and the hurting. Invite someone to church. Ask how you can serve.

These aren’t works to earn anything. They’re ways to respond to the love and grace of Jesus.

Grace Takeaway

These old laws show us the heart of God: every life is precious, the weak are protected, and responsibility matters. And they point to Jesus, our Redeemer, the Servant sold for thirty pieces of silver. He has valued you more than all the riches of the world. He calls you His treasure and His bride. Serving Him isn’t bondage; it’s the freedom you were made for.

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Value Judgments