Slavery and the Ox: Biblical Truths in a Modern Context

OK, now that we're recording, you could say nice things about me. Go ahead. Come on.

You've got nothing to say now. Now that we're recording, I do anything nice. I just wanted to get you to the music, man.

Don't we get the music? I know. I just wanted before I started all that. I wanted you to say something nice. So I had it recorded and I could just play it over and over and over.

Dom says I'm a nice guy. We we love Andrew Rappaport. All right.

Let's get the show started. Here we go. Welcome to The Rappaport with your host,

Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to striving for eternity dot org.

Welcome to another edition of The Rappaport Street Talk Theology as we are continuing what will be the last in our crossover sessions, crossover episodes where we have been going through Exodus 21, a lot of topics we've been covering,

Pastor Dom, in Exodus 21. Haven't we? What are some of the things we've covered so far? Oh, you're asking me,

I was just Rachel was just texting me, what's up, Andrew? How you doing? Everything. I'm going to leave that in.

I would have to do that, but that was a classic. Yeah, right. Exactly. Rachel's texting me and you're asking me and what did we cover so far?

I'll tell you one thing we covered. We covered probably what, 25 verses. Yeah.

In this tough text. And I think that I think that what we tried to do is try to apply it to today.

And when we eventually get to the ox and stuff like that, it's going to be a tough play to apply to today.

But hopefully and prayerfully that we can. Well, I think I think we will be able to, but so, yeah, so we covered a lot of topics and we'll wrap up some of those today.

We've talked about death penalty, slavery, abortion, all within this one chapter.

And there's a lot here that people get stuck on because they look at slavery and we've talked about and we're going to talk about again in this episode, the different types of slavery between the

African slave trade and the biblical slavery. We got into discussing, you know, just the differences between the way the

Old Testament judicial system was. The way laws were. Yeah.

So there's a lot here. We even we even got to play in last episode, a clip from Charlie Kirk where someone used this very passage to try to argue that the

Bible was supporting abortion. Yeah, that was pretty cool. I think that I think that I think

I think the woman really took that. Well, the young lady really took that out of context. I think we mentioned that last week.

And that's what we're doing. We're walking through this, giving context. So, Pastor Dom, let's start reading just to get context.

Why don't you read verses 20, Exodus 20, verse 20 down to 27.

And we're going to focus today on 26 and 27. You know, it's hard to it's hard to ever when you get a chance to correct

Andrew Rappaport, you got to do it because he doesn't make that many mistakes. But if he has me reading from Chapter 20, we'll really be in trouble.

But it is Chapter 21. So I want to I want to lightly correct him very lightly because I don't want because I'll probably make a lot more mistakes and I don't want him to correct me.

So so he's getting me back to a couple of episodes ago where I said, oh, we'll start at Leviticus 20.

So you you started. Listen, they don't know the back story to that. So when he when he told me about Leviticus, he doesn't know

I was studying Leviticus because I thought it was Leviticus myself. But I never fessed up to that.

I let him take the weight. So I want to I want to be careful, but we will start next to this 21 verse 20.

And you want me to read down to twenty seven. Okay. And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall surely be punished.

But if for a day or two he is able to stand, no punishment shall be taken for his property.

And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband will set for him and he shall pay that as the judges decide.

Verse 23. But if there is any further injury, then you shall pay life for life.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.

And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave and ruins it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye.

And the last verse here. And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.

Thus is the reading of God's word. Right, Andrew? Yep. And so, Dom, help us out from verse twenty down to twenty five.

What were we discussing? What are some of the things to recap for the audience that we looked at there?

Yeah, so I guess it I guess I guess the the the example or the the explanation there is this eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

But I think that you have to, you know, because in verse twenty, it says if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall surely be punished.

But but if for a day or two he's able to stand, no punishment shall be taken for his property.

Right. So I think this I think it's just like basically. You know, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

I mean, I think it's just equal value of of of what happens. Yes. Dealing with the judgment here.

Right. You can't if somebody knocks your tooth out, you can't take their life over it.

That that's what we ended up ending on. Right. When we ended on the eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Punishment fits the crime.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so when we look at that, there were a couple of other things indirectly we picked up as well.

And we're going to pick up this week on this idea of the how treat how you treat the slave, because.

Now, when we look at what people think of slavery, they often think of the

African slave trade. In America, you know, which is probably the wrong way to look at this text.

Exactly. So if you read that slave trade into here, it's it's a problem.

I mean, if we remember last, I think it was the week's run together for me.

But I remember that the slave here basically could be when they would put the owl in the ear, could actually be part of the family.

And, you know, the marriage and children and into intervening of all that.

This is a whole different aspect than the African slave trade. This is where and it seems like the master would love the the slave just like the slave would love the master and want to be integrated with the family.

So it's a whole different ballgame, I think anyway. Well, the focus that the

Bible has on slavery is on the rules of the master. Right. When we think of the

African slave trade in America, we think of people who were considered property. They had no rights.

And therefore, the master could do anything he wanted to. The slave beat him, kill him, and there was no repercussion.

And people tend to think that's what how every master treated their slave in the African slave trade. But this is different, right?

If the six years after six years, I mean, the year of Jubilee, the slave can go free if he wants.

Yeah. Well, if he was a Hebrew slave. Right, exactly. And we talk about that's a good point.

We talk about that because this is the thing people when they they're reading in the slavery that we read about in American schools.

And this is different because this slavery that's discussed here, as you said, for the

Hebrew, they had a you know, they had six years. Seventh year they go free.

So and a lot of them didn't want to go free. Right, Andrew? Yeah, some wouldn't. And we talked about the fact that what they really was, and we're going to get into it here, is that the issue of slavery was more of an employment system in that day.

There there were then and there are now people who don't know how to take care of themselves.

Right. So in America, we create welfare and we put people on a welfare system because they don't know how to manage money.

They don't know how to manage time and keep a job, things like that. And so they get themselves into debt.

And so in in this country, taxpayers. Have their money taken to give to those who are not able to manage themselves.

And so here the system would be, is you had a master who would take care of them.

We're going to get into this, but it's clearly not an ownership that the idea that you own another human being.

We already looked at a passage that said you can't kidnap a person that kidnapping a person is worthy of death.

So you don't have to kill the person, but you're you're taking kidnapping them. You're taking their their their not their life physically, but you're you're taking control of them.

And and that was worthy of death. We saw that in this chapter. Yeah. And we saw this difference of, hey, you strike a man, a slave and he dies, you you get the punishment of death.

If you use property, you wouldn't have that. But if he if he gets up, we talked about this. Why was that?

If if two free people strike each other and one is out of work, you had to pay that the person you struck back when it's a slave.

You didn't because that slave is working for you to make up money either that he owes you.

Right. And that's how a lot of people would become slaves. I owe Pastor Don money. I got no means of making money.

So I start working for him and I get half a day's wage. He gets the other half. Right. And and that is doing two things.

It's helping me to learn how to manage money, make some money and get myself on a better footing.

And I'm also paying him back. But when they would go in and capture foreigners, Gentiles, and they take over the land and they kill the men in that culture, women had no means of providing for themselves.

And so they had to have someone care for them. And this was the responsibility of the master to care for them.

And that's why they didn't get set free, because it would be a thing where the the master is just going to go, well,

I don't want to have to take care of this person. It's an extra mouth to feed or whatnot. But once they took over that land, they all had the responsibility to take care of the people that were left there.

That's a very good result. No. And I was just thinking about this. You know, when you think about these these truths that we're speaking about, these are absolute truths.

They're not relative. They were absolute. They were absolute for everybody. The problem today is we live in a world where whatever is true for Andrew is true.

I mean, so in other words, this this these are God given truths that had to be obeyed and was obeyed.

Or else there was if it wasn't obeyed by the master, the master would have a problem. Right. So it's fair to everyone.

And today we live in a world where it's the truths are not absolute. They're relative.

So you just make it, you know, something that's going to benefit you.

Instead of here, the the laws benefit everyone. Everyone's I think everything is fair.

The owner is responsible. The slave is responsible. And I think that's in the world that we live in today.

There is no absolute truth. So that's why we I think that's that's why we're in the position that we're in today.

Yeah, well, there is an absolute truth. It's just that the world is trying to deny it. No, I mean, there's absolute truth, but the world does not go by it.

Right. Yeah, correct. So as we look at this, looking at verse 26 and 27, where we're at.

And it says there, if a man strikes the eye of the male or female slave to ruin, in other words, they strike the eye or even a tooth.

So you you strike the slave. It's this is in the context that it's been dealing with the people getting into a fight.

You get in a fight with your slave and you hit him in the eye. Goes blind in one eye or if he gets into a fisticuff with him and knocks out a tooth, what happens?

He goes free. Now, a lot of people, I think, when they read this, they're reading into it, the

African slave trade. So they think, oh, it's because you own this person. And now because this happened, they're a free person.

But remember, this was the responsibility where if if so, let's use me and Pastor Dom as an example.

If I don't know how to manage my money, I owe Pastor Dom money. I end up having to sell myself as a slave to Dom.

OK, that's that's how that that happens. And so when I do that, the

I'm owing him money. That's why I'm working for him as a slave.

But now he pops my tooth out. I'm I go free. Well, I would have gone free in the seventh year.

But now I go free in this year. And what do I owe him? Nothing. In other words, zero, nothing.

If if he pops my tooth out, my tooth, OK, you know, could live without a tooth.

But if he pops my tooth out, my debt is cleared. That's what this is saying here.

So we don't want to read into it the the slave trade that we would think of. We have to look at it and understand how slavery was at that time.

So the freedom he has there. Whether male or female slave has the idea, not only are they free, they no longer have to work for the person, but they don't have the the debt anymore either.

The debt is paid. The debt is paid. Now, let me ask you a question, Pastor Dom. If as people try to make the argument that the slavery in the

Bible is the same slavery that we think of in the African slave trade. In the in the

Americas here, when slavery was legal, if someone popped out the tooth of their slave or hit them in such a way that they're blind in one eye, would would they free the slave because of that?

No way. No, because they treated them as property. But a different type of property.

I mean, they treated them like if they were just basically an animal. I mean, but here you can see the rights that are given even to the slave.

They would go free without without debt. So it's a whole different ballgame, as we were saying.

I don't know how people can read, read the same thing into it. But here you can see that the slave would go debt free.

So that right there, what Pastor Dom just said is what proves that this is a different type of slavery, because.

There they get to go free, debt free. Instead of being told, well,

I knocked your tooth out, but to up too bad, you're my property, see, this is this passage here is one that proves that in the

Bible, the slavery of the Bible was not a slavery that was of ownership of another human being.

I think that's important, Pastor Dom, right? Because so many people, if you do evangelism, you get a lot of people that will use the issue of slavery to argue that the

Bible supports slavery and it's a different slavery. I think of well, let me give some examples.

Matt Slick, a guy you and I both know, he's got one of the podcasts on the Christian podcast community. And he he is one who did a debate with a professing atheist.

And that guy, the issue is morality. And the guy's whole argument was that the Bible supports slavery and slavery is wrong.

But his whole argument was on the fact that he's interjecting the African slave trade into the

Bible and passages like this clearly show that there's a difference between those two.

Yeah, I said, Jesus, when you start doing stuff like that, you run into a lot of problems. I mean, and that's why

I think we try to exegete this text. I mean, it's just trying to fit that into this.

This type of reading is just it's outside of Scripture. It has nothing to do what happened with the the

African slave trade. I think anyway. Yeah. You know, should

I get myself in trouble, Pastor Dom? Oh, I'll protect you. Don't worry. You know, there's a pretty well -known preacher that.

Wants to. Unhitched the Old Testament from the New Testament.

And the reason he wanted to do that was because the Old Testament talks about slavery, and it's such an issue of sleep with slavery.

He argues that we have to unhitch the Old Testament from the New Testament. In other words, we should just focus on the

New Testament. You know who I'm referring to there, Pastor? You know, there's a couple. I was trying to think that there's a couple of guys.

So the one specifically that use the language we have to unhitch the Old Testament from the New Testament is

Andy Stanley. That's who I was going to say. So I was thinking about Charles Stanley, his son.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Charles is the dad and Andy is the son and Andy argues that.

Now, here's the thing. I really find this funny because do you know, Pastor Dom, that if we try to know, man, do you know, man,

Drew? No. Don't know either one of them. I mean, I know of them just like you do.

But the the thing is, if you were to unhitch the Old Testament from the New, let's let's do an experiment.

If we were to get rid of every New Testament book, Every Old Testament book or New Testament?

New Testament that refers back to the Old Testament. You know, we'd be in trouble. We'd be left with one book.

You know, there's only one book in the whole New Testament that doesn't refer back to the old.

You know which book that is? Can I take a guess, Andrew? Yeah, Philemon.

Philemon. What is Philemon all about? Slavery. Slave. Oh, yeah, you ain't right.

That's for a good job, right? Yeah, right on the Eastern Miss. I forgot about that. If we did that, if we unhitch the

Old Testament from the New Testament, the only book we're left with is the very thing he doesn't like in the Old Testament. Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean, there's no way you can read the New Testament because they didn't have nothing else but the

Old Testament. Yeah, I mean, right there. The writers. I don't, you know,

I think in I think it's in second Peter where he starts saying that, you know, Paul's Paul's writings were scripture, but at that time,

I don't know if they I don't even know if they thought that what they were writing was going to be scripture.

I mean, I mean, I know it was inspired, but I don't know how much but Peter acknowledged that what

Paul was writing was actually scripture, but all they had was the Old Testament.

Correct. Yeah, and even well, even as the New Testament is being written, it's still the continuation without a doubt of the

Old Testament. And so as we look at this, we're going to get into next this really interesting thing about when an ox scores, you know, someone's neighbor, but we've so far covered a lot of topics dealing with death penalty, people getting into a fight, abortion, all these different things.

One thing we've been doing throughout Pastor Dom is you kept using one word over and over again.

Every time we come to this on a proper way to interpret what is that one key word that you keep bringing up?

Exegesis. Well exegesis, but the big part of exegesis. You permit you keep discussing context.

Oh, yeah, you got to keep things in context. That's it. That's the problem today is people don't keep things in context.

They take one verse, you know, like, okay, since me being since I did time in prison, one of the verses that you see on the don't hang up on me.

No, but right one of the verses you see on cups. Like I know the plans for you that I have plans for this and they're my 2911.

And I tell people all the time. Wait a minute. I says that's after 70 years of captivity.

So you got to go to the can for 70 years and then no,

I'm serious. Andrew. Am I right? I tell people you want to walk around with that cup first.

You got to do 70 years in the can then you can walk around with that cup and apply it to yourself.

You can't just apply it to yourself, right? Because that those things did not come about until they were released from captivity all joking aside, right?

I mean, correct. That's correct. Jesus. It was it was that verse was written specifically for those who live through the 70 year captivity of that.

Exactly. And so, you know, if we what is the danger in let's take this is this passage.

We have Pastor Dom. What is the danger of me? Inserting into the passage the

African slave trade to this part about, you know, letting a slave free.

If his his eye is injured or his tooth is injured because he got into a fight.

Hey, Andrew, you know something? I I'm not ducking that question at all, but I was just thinking about something when you were saying no,

I'm serious. I was thinking about and this is important, you know, while we're on this.

If you are I suggest eating text, no matter how good it sounds.

There's no power in it. There's no power in a text that you are just I suggest eating because I don't even know if that's a

I'm trying to say that word rightly. But the thing is if you're and this is important because you know, we try to go through great pains, especially the

Christian podcast community in exegeting the text rightly because if you do that, there's power in the text power to save power to challenge.

Right? I mean, otherwise, there's no power in the text that you can even though the sermon may sound good and it's all entertaining and stuff like that.

And even if somebody, you know, takes one verse and but there's no power in that the

Spirit of God is not going to use that to save anybody or even challenge anybody. Does that make sense?

I just I you know, so anyway, I was just thinking about that.

Yeah, because if we're going to read something in, you know, let me let me put it this way.

I'll paraphrase something that John Calvin said if you take

God's word out of context, you no longer have God's word. You have man's word. Amen.

Yeah, it's true. And and that's the the the issue is we want to make sure that we are rightly interpreting

God's word. And so to do that, we have to make sure we're in context.

Yeah, people are you if you take in the African slave trade and it's inserting it in here.

It doesn't even I don't know how it doesn't it doesn't fit.

It doesn't it's a whole different context a whole different time. And this is if I had a

I want to be careful here, but this is almost like employee employer relationship here.

Here. Basically, I mean if you looked at it, if you want to apply it to today and even when we get down to the ox and stuff, there's something

I was reading Douglas Stewart, who's a pretty good expositor in the book of Exodus. I think he

I think he does from the New American commentary, but he made some good points on about the ox and stuff, which

I didn't see myself. So I'll mention that when we get there. Well, with that, then why don't we wrap up this part and because the rest of this chapter will be about the ox scoring a neighbor.

And that seems like something folks. How do I apply that to my life?

How do we how do we do this? That's what we're going to end up talking about in the next section as we as we look at that.

So I am glad that those who listen will maybe you've gotten things out of this. If you like what you're hearing, share it, let others know.

We're covering a lot. You might think, how does an ox fit in here?

I don't have an ox. Pastor Dom, do you have an ox at home? I don't. Yeah. How's it apply?

Well, maybe you should stay tuned to find out because we're about to cover that.

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I've been using it for years. So let's continue our crossover episode.

I'm Andrew Rappaport, my counterpart here, Pastor Dominic Grimaldi from Street Talk Theology, and I'm with the

Andrew Rappaport's Rappaport podcast. We are finishing up Exodus 21.

We're going to look at verses 28 to 36 today. So Pastor Dom, would you mind reading for us because we're going to talk today about, or in this section, of what happens when your ox goes crazy and gores your neighbor, which everyone goes,

I hate when my ox does that. But we're going to see how this applies to us today.

So would you mind reading verses 28 to 36? It would be my pleasure.

If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall go unpunished.

If, however, an ox was previously in the habit of goring and its owner has been warned, yet he does not confine it and puts a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death.

If a ransom is demanded of him, then he shall give the redemption of his life, whatever is demanded of him, whether it causes a son or a daughter, it shall be done to him according to the same judgment.

If an ox gores a male or a female slave, the owner shall give his or his master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned.

And if a man opens a pit and if a man digs a pit and does not cover it over and an ox and a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restitution.

He shall give money to its owner and the dead animal shall become his, verse 35. And if one man's ox hurts another so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide its price equally and also they shall divide the dead ox.

Or if it is known that the ox was previously in the habit of goring yet its owner has not confined it, he shall surely pay ox for ox and the dead animal shall become his.

Amen. Thus is the reading of God's word. So as we look at this, Pastor Dom, we don't live in a time most of us that have an ox that could go astray, break out of the fence and gore a neighbor.

So when we do this, one of the things we have to do is start with looking to what it's saying in the time frame when this was written.

What did it mean then? And then carry it through after we have that meaning, carry it through to how we apply it to us today.

But this is also in a broader context as we've been looking through this whole chapter, dealing with things of judgments, legal things of what do you do when someone kills another person, hits another person, if you hit them and they recover or you hit them and they die, what do you do with slaves?

All of these things. So this is another case in that ongoing context.

So you have two guys who are free. They fight and the

Bible gives us in this chapter, the rules of what to do if one dies or they stay alive. Then it goes into dealing with a slave, goes into a woman that maybe tried to stop the fight.

And now we get into your animal. This is your property. Unlike a slave.

This is your property. And so now you're responsible for what the animal does.

So as we look at this in the context, he's still talking about the responsibilities when no longer a person harms another person.

But now what happens when an animal that you own hurts another person? Yeah, you know,

I in verse 28, you know, it's almost like it's almost like to vellicular homicide, right?

I mean in a way because you if you know, like if you're driving in a car and you happen to kill, you don't mean to kill the person just like this.

This this ox seems like it just it's first of all, it's not in 29 where the ox is previously on.

This is an accident, right? I mean, this is an accident just like if you're in a car and you're driving a car and you accidentally hit somebody, like I says, these are accidents and 28 is an accident and basically you're going to lose the ox, the flesh can't be eaten, but the owner of the ox.

It's it's really not his fault. It's just an accident. Does that make sense? Yes, and and so you made the point between verses 28 and verse 29, whether it's the first time it happens, you assume it's an accident, you know, the person dies.

So what do you do? What says the ox will surely be stoned and its flesh should not be eaten, but the owner of the ox should go unpunished.

Why? Why does the owner the focus of this is not really so much on the ox, but the owner, the owner, if this happens once has has no knowledge of this being a regular behavior, the ox would have.

So if the ox was to to do this, the instructions are you kill the ox so it doesn't happen again.

And not only that, yes, the owner, the owner goes unpunished because he didn't know, but you know, oxes and bulls, you know, bulls, these are these are expensive animals.

So he would still lose out somewhat. I mean, not I mean, because you know, these are you know, the words expensive animals and he couldn't eat the flesh.

So there's still a little penalty there. You know what I'm saying? Correct. Yeah, that's a good point.

I didn't think of that, but that's a good point because he's out the ox and he can't even have the meat, but they were expensive.

They were not cheap animals. Yeah, verse 29 though people read it by itself and you got to put the connection here.

If the ox did this once you're supposed to kill the ox. So how can you get a case of verse 29?

However, if the ox previously had a habit of goring. Right?

Well, how could it be that he has the habit if you kill him the first time? Obviously, it means that the owner didn't kill the ox the first time and it happens a second or third or fourth time and each time the owner is not doing what's prescribed by the law.

Now, the owner is responsible and that's why it's penalty is death. I mean, it's a it's you know, fair exchange is no robbery, right?

I mean, that's you know, basically. It's practical.

Yeah. So so in this case, the owner was trying to get away from killing the animal.

But people died. At least in verse 29 would be two people, the first person when the when the ox should have been stoned and the second person that made it a habit.

And so in that case, the owner is being irresponsible. He's not following the law and therefore it says in this case, the the owner the owner has been warned, right?

He's to be put to death. Right because he did not follow the law to prevent another death.

Now, Pastor Dom, we're going to get in trouble, but I see I see a direct relation here.

You know, we have judges in America today who let people off. They know that the law says that these people should be imprisoned and they're not imprisoning them because they feel bad for the people.

They're here illegally. They're illegal immigrants or you know, there was a one judge that just the guy literally was cursing out the judge.

The judge was like just show more remorse so I can let you go free because you know, you had an unfair life and this and that and he's just like I don't care what you do and he starts mouthing off to her like no remorse whatsoever and she still lightens the sentence because she doesn't think it's fair.

But see when these people go out and then recommit crimes and kill people again, if we were to apply this,

I think that an easy application bit the judge is now responsible for letting that person go.

If the law said that the judge had to sentence them to prison and they let them go and the person goes and kill somebody the judge is also responsible for letting that person go why the principle that is here with the owner is the owner knew that this possibly could happen again, but the owner avoided what the law said.

For whether in this case personal gain, but in the case of the judge maybe to feel better about themselves or they want to fit in with the the woke

Society, whatever it is. It's still the same principle that they had a responsibility to do what's right and they didn't do it and someone died because of it.

You know, you make a good point. I never thought about that about the that the judge should be liable to right, but that doesn't happen.

No, that's it. That's true. That's really a good point. I you know, it's crazy. You think about that the judge, you know, the judge is nothing happens to the judge.

Yeah, because because these guys are not usually in their neighborhood, right?

Riding on the train Andrew. I'll tell you something. I reiterate this would even people in the congregation where I serve the

United States. There are ways to get in this country legally immigrants can put in for asylum to come here.

However, you call it. There are legal ways to come if you come illegally, it's illegal.

That's I mean think about the term illegal immigrants. I mean right there.

The term is that you're here illegally and I just don't understand why that's so hard for people to understand do we care about people?

Of course we do but you know, they were borders in the Bible to write. I mean there was borders and I think those borders are biblical.

But anyway, that's a story for another day, but it is the point that look you have some people who've been have been before the judges.

There's a kid that they just had. I think it was in New York 175 times that he's been before judges and the judges let him go and he's killed a person and the judging happens to the judge nothing happens to the judge in this case.

They kept letting him go but it there becomes this habit.

You see that there's like the ox has a habit of goring people. You have people that have a habit. That's what the laws are for.

And so this would say that in this case of the owner. This also applies to an employer.

You purposely are putting people in a position where you're being irresponsible and not doing the right thing.

This would say you get held responsible. So we as Christians, how do we hand? How do we interpret this?

Well, we have to be responsible for the decisions. We did we do so we have to do right things even when it may be uncomfortable or be cost us something we have to do what's right and in doing such

I think that we have to look to take care that the things that are our responsibility do not harm others because we are responsible in this case of an animal what it might do and you and you can apply that and this is a this is a loose application, but it's it's you can apply that today to a human being who's a recidivist recidivism, you know, when you are a three -time felon or something like that, you would get a lot more time as a recidivist as somebody who continues to do the same behavior just like the ox.

I mean if the you know, if you get if you do something one time, you usually get a light sentence like we see in in In verse 28, but in 29 recidivism is is actually today even in a criminal justice system.

If you got two or three felonies, you're going to get more time than the person who does it one time loose application, but an application nonetheless.

Now as we continue looking at this pastor Dom we see more right so here it's you have the first case in verses 28 29 you have your the ox gores a free person, but as you drop down it gets into whether the ox gores a son or daughter.

It'll be done the same to him. But now in verse 32, it says if the ox gores a male or female slave the owner shall give his or his or her master 30 shekels of silver and the ox will be stoned.

So now you have a difference here from verse 28, right? If the the the person that is killed is a slave.

So in verse 28 person is killed the ox is stoned no other punishment, but if they if a slave is stone is killed then not only is the ox killed or stoned but what you end up doing is you have to pay the master.

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The reason being is because the master lost something. He would he had the person who was a slave to him owed him a debt.

So this is covering some of that debt. Yeah, and so there's a payment that had to be made for what was owed to the master.

Okay. Now it's the person that got gored is dead.

So it's not this so people are like wise. Why doesn't a slave get anything? Because they're dead.

That's the context, right? The context is they get they got gored. They're dead.

So the difference between 28 and 32 is that both times someone died for by that by the ox's actions, but in the case with a slave the master is also harmed.

And so because they're also harmed. That's why we see the payment.

That's why the payment is due because the master was harmed. Correct. So this this then has the idea that as we look at this a passive that seems like well, what does this have to do with us?

Well, it does have something that we can look at because there is a principle we can bring forward to today that you we should not be causing harm to others.

And if we do we have to bring restitution to all the people we harm. No, I know.

This is different than our wool culture that wants to have reparations. So people who never own slaves pay people who never were slaves.

Yeah, that's that's we spoke about that before. That's crazy. That's not just right, but the idea of restitution is here, right?

Because it says in verse 33, if a man opens a pit or a man digs a pit and does not cover it over and the ox or donkey fall into it, the owner of the pit shall make restitution.

He shall give money to the owner and the dead animal shall become his. In other words, the guy sets a pit and he didn't take the proper care to prevent the animal from falling into the pit where it's going to die.

Right? So now this is not the animal killing the human. This is the human that indirectly kills the animal.

And the animal gets the animal gets he gets some justice too.

Well, the the verse 34 the owner of the pit shall make restitution.

He'll give the money to the owner and the dead animal shall become his. Yeah, so he gets, you know, now it doesn't say here whether he can eat it or not, like we saw before, but maybe maybe that could be implied.

I don't know. But the issue here is again, it's to focus on the idea.

This is to say that people have responsibility to even of someone else to care for even someone else's property.

That's what's going on here. You have a case where someone else's property is is in this case a donkey or an ox that falls into a pit and you have the responsibility to cover that pit.

And if you don't cover the pit after you dug it and the animal falls in because the animal doesn't know any better then you have to pay the person for the animal.

It's it's a basic thing of saying that you do make things right.

That's what we've been seeing throughout this eye for an eye tooth for a tooth.

Yeah, I mean, it's just it's just a fairness code here and we you know, when you talk about today about these reparations and stuff like that about, you know, family members way down that has nothing that's not a fairness code at all.

You know, these are just this is just doing what's right. I mean, you know doing the right thing.

I mean just you like I said, I fight tooth for tooth. So it's it's kind of it's self -explanatory really is.

Yeah. So let's let's wrap this up with the last bit we got here. It says in verse 35 and 36 and if one man's ox hurts another's so that it dies.

So what he's doing is he's giving all these different cases. You had the human that attacked was attacked by the ox then you have the human that attacked the ox and now you have a case where you have the ox attacking another ox.

Okay, so he's trying to give you all the different scenarios. Now, this is not meant to say that they're the only scenarios.

It's to give the principles that we would apply injustice. So one man's ox hurts another man's ox so that it dies then they shall eat the they shall sell the live ox and divide the price equally and also they shall divide the dead ox.

Or if it is known that the ox was previously in the habit of goring yet, its owner has not confined it.

He shall surely pay ox for ox and the dead animal shall become his so what you have here again, you have the case where he's making a distinction between the the responsibility of the owner of the ox.

Animals attack one another that's one thing. But here you have a case where the animal is known to have done this before just like the other case.

Now, there's a different consequence for it. And I think to Andrew the ox is being used as like a moniker as a kind of a but this would happen if it was a sheep or a goat or anything like that.

I think this is just use it would be for any type of animal right Andrew with this text.

I mean, this is I think the bull is just used for just a picture of but this would go with any animal.

I'm sure right. Yeah. So what you have here is you have the case where the animal is again, just like we saw in verse 28.

If the animal just does it the first time the animal should be killed and everything's divided equally between the two people because both have have an ox that was lost.

But in verse 36 that the difference in verse 36 is the fact that you have you have a case where now the person the owner didn't do the right thing.

He didn't put the ox down and now it's hurt another animal.

So in this case now, it's not split evenly because who's responsible the responsible party is the guy who had an ox that that he did not put down in the first place.

And so he is held responsible. So what happens the other guy gets the the ox right the living he gets the the gets paid for the ox he lost right and then he gets the meat from the the animals.

Mm -hmm. So fair. So these are things that people go looking at this passage ago.

How do I apply this today? Well, you can see how did we do we walk through this and we can we can find a way to apply this very easily even for Christians today.

I think this is I hope that this was helpful for you folks and you can see that this is something that that we would be able to apply in a lot of different ways and see that even when we though we don't have we don't most of us have ox at home.

It's still something that we can look at and know that we can take the scriptures understand what it meant at the time in which it was originally written and apply that to our lives.

And and that's what we what we've done here. And I hope that that this becomes something you see.

Oh, you could you too could do this. You can take these scriptures and interpret them yourselves.

So dumb as we wrap up this chapter and our crossover episodes that we've been doing.

Is there anything you you would want to share or discuss with folks or just to recap?

Yeah, let me see if I can let me just go to my shelf one second Andrew. I don't know. Oh, here it is. So I want to make a recommendation and I don't know about about how we've been talking about.

This is this is a book called how to read the Bible for all it's worth right?

This was a book that was done by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart and this would this book is real

Andrew ever heard of this book. Yes. Yeah, I'm sure you have but this this helps you with good exegesis and good hermeneutic just something and it's for more people trying to get into what you know,

Andrew was talking about today with exegesis and hermeneutics and stuff like that. So this is a good recommendation looking at the original context and then applying if it's a day what

I think mean Andrew tried to do with this Exodus 21 chapter just a book recommendation.

If I may well since you're giving a book recommendation, one of our bloggers are trying to see how

I led into that buddy. Yeah, you did. Well, you did. Well, the one of our bloggers at striving for change

Josiah Nichols, he his first book was called when my ox gores my neighbor and what he tries to do in that book is to walk through this text that's to show you how to exegete this passage how to break it down and then eventually get to applications.

So I hope that this has encouraged you in your study of God's word that you've taken these several weeks that we've taken a difficult passage and shown you how you have to first interpret it in in the context in the context of which it was written and then you can carry it into today's context to see how it applies and we've tried to do that and display that and so with that we hope that you've gotten a lot out of this.

I hope you'd share the episode you're listening to whether it's on the rap report or street talk theology so that you will help others to study the word

God. So Dom, thanks for joining me and I'm grateful that you let me join you on your podcast these several weeks and with that Dom, that's a wrap.

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