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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Death Penalty Monotheism was: "admittedly syncretistic..
  • Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 10:24:06 -0500


Aren't you distinguishing between when it was man's responsibility to put someone to death, and when G-d said He would do it??

Shoshanna





[LSF] No murder isn't always punished by death, cf Exodus 21:20. No punishment is listed. How do you translate naqom >>>yenaqem?

[JDS] He shall be avenged. Blood vengeance, meanng the death penalty. In other words, a slave is worthy of blood vengeance >>just as is a free man. That;s the punishment. Casuistic law always has a sanction.

[LSF} I'm not sure about this.It seems if so, then it would say mut, yamut. I don't think a punishment,
except what is avenged by God, i/e., if he has an accedental death. But there is no punishment
assigned. The slave was his property, and the presumption is you don't purposely destroy
your own property. So the assumption probably is that you can't murder your own slave
(Like you can't rape your wife?), so that there is no death penalty.

The death penalty is mentioned elsewhere in the Covenant Code without using the term "mot yamut".
Ex. 22:1) If the thief is discovered while breaking in (at night) and he is smitten and dies, he has no blood [revenge].
2a) If the sun shone upon him (i.e., if he was discovered and killed in daylight), he has blood [revenge].

(2b continues the law begun in 22:37. The principle of associative organization of the laws is operating here, as pointed out by Cassuto many years ago.)

So both in Ex. 22:20 and in 23:2-3. terms other than "mot yamut" are used for the death penalty, indicating in both cases who was to carry out the death penalty - as also in 22:12-14.

As for the presumption of a slave-owner not destroying his own property, this indeed is operative in 22:21, where the slave smitten by his master does not die immediately, but several days afterwards. Here, the cause-and-effect relationship between the blows inflicted by the master and the death of the slave is no longer unambiguous, and the master is given the benefit of the doubt.
The principle of benefit of the doubt is still used in halakhic "pesiqa le-qula" .
Jonathan
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Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
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