Exodus 21:23

Study note

Setting — God delivers this directive to Moses and the Israelite community while establishing civil and criminal statutes in the wilderness. It functions as the conditional consequence following a scenario where combatants accidentally strike a pregnant woman.

The words — אָס֖וֹן ('a.Son) denotes a serious injury or disaster, and נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ (Ne.fesh Ta.chat Na.fesh) literally renders a life in place of a life.

The thread — The text establishes a baseline for proportional justice that recurs in Leviticus 24:19 and Deuteronomy 19:21, while Numbers 35:31 explicitly forbids accepting a ransom for a murderer's life.

Why it lands — The passage requires adjudicators to impose a direct, non-monetary penalty when violence produces fatal outcomes. A reader must apply this standard of exact retribution rather than substituting financial compensation for a taken life.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.