Bible Strands
Exodus 21:35
If a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they must sell the live one and divide the proceeds; they also must divide the dead animal.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Moses and the assembled Israelites at Mount Sinai, delivering a corpus of civil statutes. This verse appears in a sequence regulating accidental property damage and financial restitution.
The words — The verb יִגֹּף (yi.gof) literally means it will strike or gore. The particle וְ/כִֽי (ve./khi-) functions as a conditional marker introducing the legal scenario.
The thread — The text establishes a baseline for accidental damage, which the surrounding statutes expand upon. Exodus 21:34 addresses liability for an uncovered pit, while Exodus 21:36 escalates compensation when the ox had a known goring habit.
Why it lands — The text commands the owners to sell the surviving ox, split the cash, and divide the carcass of the dead animal. It requires impartial economic adjustment to prevent blood feuds when property is accidentally destroyed.
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.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And if one man’s ox hurt another’s, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide.