Exodus 21:29

Study note

Setting — Moses delivers this civil statute to the assembled Israelites at Sinai, establishing liability rules for livestock-related deaths. The law addresses a specific moment in the covenant code where domestic animals become instruments of fatal harm.

The words — The text employs שׁוֹר נָגָח (shor nagach), literally "goring ox," and the temporal phrase מִתְמֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם (mitmol shilshom), meaning "from yesterday or three days ago," to define the precise window for owner warning. It pairs this with וְהוּעַד (vehu'ad), "and it has been protested/warned," to mark the shift from accident to negligence.

The thread — This rule directly contrasts with Exodus 21:28, where an unprovoked goring spares the owner from guilt, and precedes Exodus 21:30, which introduces ransom as a legal alternative to execution. The statute appears in the immediate legal sequence governing homicide and property damage in the book of Exodus.

Why it lands — The text requires owners to neutralize known lethal threats, declaring that failure to restrain a previously warned animal incurs the same penalty as the victim's death. It demands active responsibility for foreseeable harm rather than passive allowance.

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.