John Calvin Commentary Exodus 21

Now these are the judgments. Both passages contain the same regulation, namely, that for Hebrews, slavery must end in the seventh year. For God wanted the children of Abraham, even if forced to sell themselves, to be treated differently from Gentile and ordinary slaves. Their liberation is, therefore, commanded, but with an exception that Moses expresses in the first passage but omits in the latter: that is, if the slave had married a slave woman and had children, they were to remain with the master, and the slave alone would go free.

From this, it is clear how harsh the condition of slaves was, since it could not be eased without such an unnatural exception (sine prodigio); for nothing could be more contrary to nature than for a husband to forsake his wife and children and go elsewhere. The bond of slavery could only be broken by divorce—that is, by this ungodly violation of marriage. There was, then, extreme cruelty in this separation, by which a man was torn from his wife and his own children.

Yet there was no remedy for this situation. If the wife and children had been set free with him, it would have been a robbing of their lawful master, not only because the woman was his slave, but also because he had incurred expenses in raising the young children. The sanctity of marriage, therefore, yielded in this case to private property rights. This flaw is to be counted among others that God tolerated because of the people’s hardness of heart, as it was very difficult to remedy. However, if anyone, constrained by pure love, was unwilling to abandon his wife and children, an alternative was offered: namely, that he should also surrender himself to perpetual slavery.

The procedure for this is more clearly described in Exodus than in Deuteronomy. In the latter, it only says that the master, to establish his permanent right to the slave, should pierce his ear. In Exodus, however, the detail is added that a public legal process should first occur; for if every private individual had been their own judge in this matter, the houses of rich men would have become like slaughterhouses where they could torture their miserable slaves.¹⁴⁸

We read in Jeremiah 34:11 that this law was treated with contempt, and that the Jews, contrary to all law and justice, retained permanent dominion over their slaves. Indeed, when they were severely reprimanded under King Zedekiah and liberty was proclaimed anew, the miserable men were immediately dragged back under their tyrannical yoke, as if they had been set free in mockery.

Therefore, care had to be taken to prevent them from compelling unwilling slaves to continue in servitude through secret tortures. The safeguard against this evil was an open declaration of the slave's desire before the judges, while the piercing of the ear served as a kind of mark of shame on them.

For Eastern peoples were accustomed to brand slaves, fugitives, criminals, or those who were suspected in any way. Although God did not choose to have this mark of disgrace imprinted on the foreheads of His people, yet if anyone voluntarily consented to endure perpetual slavery, God willed that he should bear this sign of his servitude on his ear.

Still, we must remember that even this slavery, although said to last “forever,” was brought to an end at the Jubilee, because then the condition of the land and people was completely renewed.

From this passage, as well as other similar ones, it plainly appears how many vices were necessarily tolerated among this people. It was entirely an act of barbarism that fathers should sell their children for the relief of their poverty, yet it could not be corrected as might have been hoped.

Again, the sanctity of the marriage vow should have been greater than to allow a master to repudiate his bondmaid after he had betrothed her to himself as his wife, or, when he had betrothed her to his son, to annul that covenant, which is inviolable. For that principle ought always to hold true: Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9).

Yet liberty was granted to the ancient people in all these matters; only provision is made here that the poor girls should not suffer disgrace and injury from their repudiation. But although God is gracious in remitting the punishment, still He shows that chastity is pleasing to Him, as far as the people’s hardness of heart allowed.

First of all, He does not allow a master to seduce his purchased female servant; if he wishes to enjoy her embraces, a marriage must take place. For although He does not state this in express terms, we may still infer from what He condemns that the contrary is what He approves. From this, too, their notion is refuted who suppose that fornication was lawful under the Law.

But the words must be more closely examined on account of their ambiguity. First, the female sex is treated with consideration, so that the condition of a female might be somewhat more favorable than that of a male, since otherwise their weakness would make young women subject to injury and shame. An explanation then follows, about which, however, interpreters differ.

For some read the particle לא,⁷⁴ lo, which is properly negative, for לו, lo; and from this arise two opposite meanings: if he has, or has not, betrothed her to himself. If one prefers to take it affirmatively, the meaning of the precept will be: if a master repudiates his bondmaid, whom he has loved and destined to be his wife, he must give her her freedom.

For although it literally says, he shall cause her to be redeemed, yet the context shows that the obligation of setting her free is laid upon him. Nor is this contradicted by the fact that he is only deprived of the power of selling her to a strange people. I do not understand this as applying to foreigners only, but to others of his own nation, since sometimes those of another tribe or family are called strangers.

For, even if there were no marriage contract, it was not otherwise lawful to sell slaves of the holy and elect people to foreigners. Besides, among the Israelites, slavery was only temporary. But, to pass by everything else, let it be enough to observe the absurdity that a master should hold his wife as a slave to be sold at will, if the opinion of those who suppose that the words refer to repudiation after betrothal is accepted.

⁷⁵ I myself rather approve of the other opinion: that, although the master has not aspired to matrimony with her, if her appearance displeases him so that he would be unwilling to have her as his wife, he must at least provide for her redemption. This is because her chastity would be in jeopardy if she remained with him unmarried, unless perhaps Moses may signify that, after she had been seduced, her master did not honor her with marriage.

But the other view which I have just expressed is simpler, and a caution is given so that masters should not seduce their female servants at their pleasure. Thus the word despise⁷⁶ does not refer to repudiation, but is opposed to beauty or conjugal love.

The next case is if he should betroth her to his son (he must give her a dowry,⁷⁷). In this, also, her modesty and honor are considered, so that she should not be oppressed by the right of ownership and become a harlot. In the third place, it is provided that if she should be repudiated, her condition should not be disadvantageous.

If, therefore, he would make her his daughter-in-law and betroth her to his son, he is commanded to deal liberally with her. For after the manner of daughters is equivalent to giving her a dowry, or, at any rate, to treating her as if she were free.

Finally, he adds that if he should choose another wife for his son, he should not reject the former one, nor defraud her of her food and clothing, or of some third thing, about which translators are not well agreed. Some render it time, but I do not see what is the meaning of diminishing her time. Others render it duty of marriage, but this is too free a translation.

Others, more correctly, render it affliction, since the girl would be humiliated by her repudiation; still, to diminish affliction is too harsh an expression for compensating an injury. Let my readers, then, consider whether the word ענתה, gnonathah, is not used for compact or agreement.

For thus the context will run very well: if his son has married another wife, the girl who has suffered ignominious rejection should obtain her rights as to food, clothing, and her appointed dowry. Otherwise, God commands that she should be set free gratuitously, so that her liberty may compensate for the wrong she has received.

He that strikes a man, so that he dies. This passage, as I have said, more clearly explains the details, and first makes a distinction between voluntary and accidental homicide. For, if a stone or an axe (Deuteronomy 19:5) may have slipped from a man unintentionally and struck anyone, He would not have it accounted a capital crime. For this purpose the cities of refuge were given, of which brief mention is made here, and whose rights will be more fully spoken of shortly, and where the method of distinguishing between design and ignorance will also be set forth.

But it must be noted that Moses declares that accidental homicide, as it is commonly called, does not happen by chance or accident, but according to the will of God, as if He Himself led the person who is killed to death. By whatever kind of death, therefore, men are taken away, it is certain that we live or die only at His pleasure. Surely, if not even a sparrow can fall to the ground except by His will (Matthew 10:29), it would be very absurd that men, created in His image, should be abandoned to the blind impulses of fortune. Therefore, it must be concluded, as Scripture elsewhere teaches, that the term of each man’s life is appointed,²⁹ with which another passage corresponds:

You turn man to destruction, and save,
Return, you children of men (Psalms 90:3).

It is true, indeed, that whatever has no apparent cause or necessity seems to us to be fortuitous. Thus, whatever, according to nature, might happen otherwise we call accidents, (contingentia); yet meanwhile it must be remembered that what might otherwise incline either way is governed by God’s secret counsel, so that nothing is done without His arrangement and decree.

In this way we do not suppose a fate³⁰ such as the Stoics invented. For it is a different thing to say that things which of themselves incline to various and doubtful events are directed by the hand of God wherever He wills, and to say that necessity governs them in accordance with the perpetual complication of causes,³¹ and that this happens with God’s connivance. Indeed, nothing can be more opposite than that God should be drawn and carried away by a fatal motive power, or that He directs all things as He sees fit.

There is no reason to follow the Jews here in philosophizing more deeply that none are delivered to death but those in whom God finds cause for it. It is indeed certain that with God there always exists the best reason for His acts; but it is wrong to infer from this that those who by His guidance meet with death must be guilty of some offense. Nor, even if God should take away an innocent man, would it be lawful to murmur against Him, as if His justice were invalid because it is concealed from us and indeed incomprehensible.

But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor. He expresses the same thing in different ways; for although there is a wide difference between slaying a man presumptuously ³² and with guile, yet Moses applies them both to a willful murder. For by guile he means a wicked disposition to injure, and by the word presumptuous he designates a violent assault, when a man in hate wantonly falls upon another. And surely truculence, and violence, and all cruelty is presumptuous, (superba); for unless a man despised his brother, he would not assail him as an enemy.

So that they would not defile the land by overlooking murders, God commands that murderers should be torn away even from His altar, by which He signifies that they are as unworthy of divine as of human aid. For, although the sanctity of the altar might afford an asylum for the protection of those who had transgressed through imprudence or error, yet it would have been wrong for impunity for crimes to have been derived from this, because the sanctuary would have been thus converted into a den of thieves, and religion would have been subjected to gross profanation. Therefore, although criminals embracing the altar might implore God’s aid, the Law commands them to be torn away from there to punishment, because it would have been disgraceful to abuse God’s sacred name as affording license for sin.

Thus it appears how great was the folly of old in supposing that churches were honored when they were made asylums for the encouragement of evil deeds. This, indeed, was derived from the ordinary custom of the heathen; but it was a foolish imitation thus to mix up God with idols in a spurious worship. Although in this respect the Gentiles served their idols more purely and virtuously than the Christians ³³ served God; for they refused the right of asylum to the sacrilegious and impure, so that the temple of the Samothracians was no secure hiding-place even to Perseus, ³⁴ the king of Macedon.

Livy records the following words, as having been spoken by a heathen, — “Since, at the commencement of all our sacrifices, those whose hands are not pure are enjoined to retire, will you suffer your sanctuaries to be contaminated by the blood-stained person of a robber?” Let us, then, be ashamed of polluting our temples under the pretext of reverence for them.

The commandment is now enforced by the threat of capital punishment for its violation. Yet, this does not mean it includes all who have in any way sinned against their parents; rather, it is sufficient to show that the rights of parents are sacred and not to be violated without the greatest criminality.

We know that parricides,⁸ as the most detestable of all people, were formerly sewn up in a leather sack and thrown into the water. But God goes further, commanding all those to be exterminated who have laid violent hands on their parents⁹ or addressed them with abusive language. For to smite not only means to kill but refers to any violence, even if no wound was inflicted. If, then, anyone had struck his father or mother with his fist or a stick, the punishment for this act of madness was the same as for murder.

Assuredly, it is an abominable and monstrous thing for a son not to hesitate to assault those from whom he has received his life; and it is certain that impunity granted to such a foul crime would immediately produce cruel barbarism.

The second law avenges not only violence done to parents but also abusive words, which soon lead to grosser insults and atrocious contempt. Still, if anyone should have carelessly uttered some slight reproach, as often happens in a quarrel, this severe punishment was not to be inflicted for such an inconsiderate piece of impertinence. The word קלל, kalal, from which the participle Moses uses is derived, not only means to reproach but also to curse, as well as to esteem lightly and to despise.

While, therefore, not every insult by which the reverence due to parents was violated was punished by death, God still desired that such impious pride, which would subvert the first principles of nature, be held in abhorrence.

But, since it might seem harsh that a word,¹⁰ however unworthy of a dutiful son, should be the cause of death, this objection is met by what God adds in Leviticus: his blood shall be upon him, because he hath cursed his father or mother: as if God would put a stop to what people might otherwise presume to allege in mitigation of the severity of the punishment.