Here is an article from the website ‘Culture Watch’:
This passage is difficult in the sense that it is a contentious passage, partly because of the way different English translations render it, and how we understand certain Hebrew terms that are used. The real difficulty is the way this passage is used in modern-day debates over abortion.
The NIV rendering of the text is as follows: “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Now there is nothing too problematic here, but that is because of the way the passage has been translated. If you take something like the KJV then you find matters become a bit more cloudy: “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.”
But real issues arise if we use something like the RSV: “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.”
Here you can see what the problem is, and how it relates to the abortion debate. It seems that a baby has been killed here, yet the fine is just a monetary one. The pro-abortion crowd seize on this and argue that the unborn baby is obviously not very important if it only is worth some monetary compensation.
This then is really an exegetical and hermeneutical problem. Getting a right understanding of the original Hebrew is the way to proceed here. So which translation best conveys the meaning of this text? The main phrase that we must focus on of course is this: “and she gives birth prematurely”.
Is the NIV on the right path here? Let me here draw upon the expertise of a number of Old Testament scholars and Hebrew experts. Douglas Stuart for example notes, as do most commentators, that there is admittedly some wording here “that is without parallel elsewhere in the Old Testament and thus challenging to translate”.
He looks at the various translation options here and then says this: “The most likely translation for the disputed portion of the law would seem to be, “If men get into a fight and hurt a pregnant woman but she is still able to have children and there is no harm…”
Continued:
