Can someone explain this please?

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dje101

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RSV-2CE
Exodus 21:22-25 under laws concerning violence and harm

“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

This verse struck me as kind of odd. It almost seems like there is little value placed on the unborn child and more placed on the woman. The way I interpreted it, it sounded like they are saying that if a woman is attacked and there is a miscarriage, but she is otherwise in ok condition, then the man responsible will be fined. But if she is damaged in any way, then there will eye for an eye.

Am I interpreting this wrong?

I guess another way it could be saying is that if men attack her to CAUSE a miscarriage but there is no harm, then the man responsible will be fined. But if it DOES cause a miscarriage, then there will be an eye for an eye.

Those are the two way that I interpreted it. You thoughts?
 
On one hand it sounds like the unborn baby isn’t of much value, but on the other hand it could be one of the great verses of the bible that is against abortion by showing that if the unborn dies, then there should be an eye for an eye. I’m not saying we should go around killing everyone, but it shows the gravity of it.

Please someone, let me know if my thinking is right on this subject!!
 
Not sure that the site above is Catholic. However, this page from Catholic Answers talks about Exodus 21:22-23 and it has been given an ‘Imprimateur’ and ‘Nihil Obstat’.

Remember, the Church has taken the issue of abortion very seriously down through history: from the Didache to Pope Benedict XVI.

Peace.
 
dje101 said:
RSV-2CE
Exodus 21:22-25 under laws concerning violence and harm

“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

Am I interpreting this wrong?
Click to expand...
Yes, Children were highly valued when it says ‘no harm’ it means both the mother and the child.
 
I looked at the brief discussion in The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press). It says that at least some Jewish experts have decided that since the penalty for miscarriage here is monetary, and not execution, that abortion is permitted to save the life of the mother.

Commentaries are usually more explicit about how such a decision is made, whereas a study bible, like this, simply gives you “the” bottom line from one outside source.

Apparently the experts at least thought about the issue. As has come up in discussion elsewhere, there are 1) no official interpretations of any scripture in Judaism and 2) – whoops, I forgot what I was going to say.

Anyway, here, there doesn’t seem to be an intention to harm the fetus, which is what abortion is about. And, even the opinion of the JSB is curiously limited to saving the life of the mother, rather than just open-ended license to commit abortion.

I haven’t read the actual Jewish Talmud or other ancient commentaries. But, I’m sure that there is a lot of discussion of this, particularly with regard to the command of God in Genesis to be fruitful and fill the earth. How can you comply with this command if you just have open-ended abortion? The command is not simply one that blesses marital conjugal activity, one would think, but that the actual birth of children is implied with the command.

In general, Judaism has a healthy respect for the commandment not to murder, with the comment that if you kill a single person you have killed many, many people (their potential offspring).

As an aside, notice that Judaism has its own “tradition” and “magisterium.”

I’ll take a leap and say the verse isn’t permitting abortion, it’s just not punishing this type of action which results in miscarriage.

Somewhere, is it Lev 5?, that the water torture is described for testing a woman accused of adultery. A man is required to accuse his wife and have her submit to the test, in order to maintain the purity of the Israelite camp. She has to drink the dirty water and submits to whatever results from that.

That might kill the fetus and the woman, too. In any event, these are not general, broad licenses to commit abortion.
 
dje101 said:
On one hand it sounds like the unborn baby isn’t of much value, but on the other hand it could be one of the great verses of the bible that is against abortion by showing that if the unborn dies, then there should be an eye for an eye. I’m not saying we should go around killing everyone, but it shows the gravity of it.

Please someone, let me know if my thinking is right on this subject!!
Click to expand...
Although both articles cited in the above posts make some valid points, they also both have their problems. The Hebrew is not “so that her child comes out” as noted in the CA article, it’s actually “so that her children (pl.) come out” (both verb and noun are in the plural) which doesn’t make a lot of sense and is the main reason why this phrase has been subject to so much speculation over the centuries. The Stand to Reason article is correct in noting that the verb in all likelihood does not mean miscarriage (regardless of what the RSV says) and correctly notes that this is the only place where the word yeledim is ever translated in this manner–which is an obvious red flag. So it is indeed much more reasonable to infer that the verse refers to a live but premature birth rather than a stillbirth.

Yet the plural is quite troublesome, which has led some to argue that the verse is referring to any type of injury to the internal organs if a pregnant woman that causes an issuance of blood or tissue–super literally–that if something (anything) issues from the pregnant woman’s vagina as a result of the injury of another, that the man who strikes her is subject to a fine.
 
dje101 said:
RSV-2CE
Exodus 21:22-25 under laws concerning violence and harm

“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

This verse struck me as kind of odd. It almost seems like there is little value placed on the unborn child and more placed on the woman. The way I interpreted it, it sounded like they are saying that if a woman is attacked and there is a miscarriage, but she is otherwise in ok condition, then the man responsible will be fined. But if she is damaged in any way, then there will eye for an eye.

Am I interpreting this wrong?

I guess another way it could be saying is that if men attack her to CAUSE a miscarriage but there is no harm, then the man responsible will be fined. But if it DOES cause a miscarriage, then there will be an eye for an eye.

Those are the two way that I interpreted it. You thoughts?
Click to expand...
Ma thoughts.New Testament is better. Jesus said that you need to love your enemy.
 
It seems some Jews (the Septuagint and Philo) around the time of Christ understood these verses to refer to injury done to the child and that the fine applied if the miscarriage occurred early in the pregnancy when the child was yet unformed and did not have a human appearance and the eye-for-an-eye punishment applied if the miscarriage occurred late in the pregnancy when the child was well-formed and had a human appearance.

From Haydock’s commentary on Exodus 21:22-23:
Ver. 22. But live herself. So Josephus also reads, Antiquities iv. 8. But Philo and the Septuagint have, “of a child unformed;” and ver. 23, “But if the child be formed, (exeikonismenon, animated and organized) he shall give soul for soul;” as if all were referred to the child, which the Vulgate explains of the mother.
 
With all that has been considered, another thing we need to throw on the table. And, that is, that man and woman are created in the image of God.

So, when the subject verse was written, the incident was probably already past, and then maybe that had come up one more than one occasion. We also need to consider of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, what did they know and when did they know it? When those incidents occurred, did they know that such and such miscarriage may result? Did they hold that the fetal life was a human being, made in God’s image and likeness?

So, in the second temple period, when the scriptures were very well organized or getting so, these considerations may come into play. But, back in Exodus, the very reason for expressing that command may have been that things were NOT so well organized and thought out, hence the rule. Even the Hebrew Bible is thought to have been written by many authors over a long period of time; certainly Exodus did not contain the final words of revelation. So, again, we can’t or shouldn’t evaluate a single verse outside of the context of the entire Bible (what Pope Benedict calls “canonical exegesis”).
 
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