OBJECTION II.—"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." Exodus xxi. 20, 21.
Arguments drawn from the Mosaic system in support of slavery, originate in a misconception both of its genius, as a whole, and of the design and scope of its most simple provisions. The verses quoted above, afford an illustration in point.
What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity? and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offence would not be capital? This is substantially what some modern Doctors tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered out from Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system—the condition of the people for whom it was made—their inexperience in government—ignorance of judicial proceedings—laws of evidence, &c., will find a moot court in session, trying law points—setting definitions, or laying down rules of evidence, in almost every chapter. Numbers xxxv. 10-22; Deuteronomy xi. 11, and xix. 4-6; Leviticus xxiv. 19-22; Exodus, xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of many cases stated, with tests furnished by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable the judges to get at the motive of the action, and find out whether the master designed to kill.
1. "If a man smite his servant with a rod."—The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Numbers xxxv. 16, 18. It was a rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon—hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant dies under his hand, then the unfitness of the instrument, instead of being evidence in his favor, is point blank against him; for, to strike him with a rod until he dies, argues a great many blows laid on with great violence, and this kept up to the death-gasp, establishes the point of intent to kill. Hence the sentence, "He shall surely be punished." The case is plain and strong. But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, together with the kind of instrument used, and the fact that the master had a pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all, made out a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill; and required a corresponding decision and sentence. A single remark on the word "punished:" in Exodus xxi. 20, 21, the Hebrew word here rendered punished, (Nakum,) is not so rendered in another instance. Yet it occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament—in almost every instance, it is translated avenge—in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance ALONE, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master—the master in the 21st verse, is to be punished, and in the 22d not to be punished; whereas the preceding pronoun refers neither to the master nor to the servant, but to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse—"If he continues a day or two," his death shall not be avenged by the death of the master, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder, as in the first instance. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, not intentional, nor extending to life or limb, a mere accidental hurt, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal. The other and accidental, and comparatively slight injury—of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! "He shall surely be punished." Now, just the difference which common sense would expect to find in such cases, where GOD legislates, is strongly marked in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, God says, "It (the death) shall surely be avenged," (Nakum,) that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators, whether individuals or communities, to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be" fined, (Aunash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word Aunash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19. They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3—"He condemned (mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of gold.—This is the general use of the word, and its primary signification. That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor amercing the master in damages, but that it was taking the master's life we infer.
1. From the Bible usage of the word Nakam. See Genesis iv. 24; Joshua x. 13; Judges xv. 7-xvi. 28; 1 Samuel xiv. 24-xviii. 25-xxv. 31; 2 Samuel iv. 8; Judges v. 2; 1 Samuel xxv. 26-33, &c. &c.
2. From the express statute in such case provided. Leviticus xxiv. 17. "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death." Also Numbers xxxv. 30, 31. "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be put to death. Moreover ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death."
3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword shall assuredly be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem thus, "Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi gives the same rendering. The Samaritan version thus, "He shall die the death."
Again, the last clause in the 21st verse ("for he is his money") is often quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. Because, 1st. A man may dispose of his property as he pleases. 2d. If the servant died of the injury, the master's loss was a sufficient punishment. A word about the premises, before we notice the inferences. The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only that the servant is worth money to the master, but that he is an article of property. If the advocates of slavery will take this principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turn it loose, let them either give bonds for its behavior, or else stand and draw in self-defence, "lest it turn again and rend" them. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when they find its stroke clearing the whole table, and tilting them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "this (wine) is my blood;" "all they (the Israelites) are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead;" "this is life eternal, that they might know thee;" "this (the water of the well of Bethlehem) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "I am the lily of the valleys;" "a garden enclosed is my sister;" "my tears have been my meat;" "the Lord God is a sun and a shield;" "God is love;" "the Lord is my rock;" "the seven good ears are seven years, and the seven good kine are seven years;" "the seven thin and ill-favored kine are seven years, and the seven empty ears blasted by the east wind shall be seven years of famine;" "he shall be head, and thou shall be tail;" "the Lord will be a wall of fire;" "they shall be one flesh;" "the tree of the field is man's life;" "God is a consuming fire;" "he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact literalities of Bible language is so amiable, it were hard not to gratify it in this case. The words in the original are (Kaspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is, a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble with all—reasoning against "forever," is forestalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted.
Who in his senses believes that in the expression, "He is his money," the object was to inculcate the doctrine that the servant was a chattel? The obvious meaning is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if the master killed him, it would take money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living some time after the injury, (as, if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while about it,) all together make out a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master of intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Answer. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or continued a day or two, he was equally his master's property, and the objector admits that in the first case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying his own property! The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of intent to kill, the loss of the slave would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A pecuniary loss, constituted no part of the claims of the law, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law utterly spurned money, however large the sum. God would not so cheapen human life, as to balance it with such a weight. "Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." See Numb. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, a case of death purely accidental, as where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Numbers xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the master, admits the master's guilt—his desert of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where man took the life of man, whether with or without intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system—resolves himself into a legislature, with power in the premises, makes a new law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit, both in kind and quantity. Mosaic statutes amended, and Divine legislation revised and improved!
The master who struck out the tooth of a servant, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him free for his tooth's sake. The pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though the servant had died. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so severely, that after a day or two he dies of his wounds; another master accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth, and his servant is free—the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same. The objector contends that the loss of the slave's services in the first case is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him; yet God commands the same punishment for even the accidental knocking out of a tooth! Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services is only a part of the punishment—mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, that strictly judicial, was, reparation to the community for injury to one of its members. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it—answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender, "those that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbour, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. You have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out the tooth of a servant, the law smote out his tooth—thus redressing the public wrong; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous liabilities in future.