Year 7, Day 70: Exodus 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When I read Exodus 21, I get to hear some honest common sense.  Do you hear how many of these laws are about the motivation of the heart?  Do you hear how many of these laws are really about genuine consequences for deliberate – or deliberately negligent – action?  I think that is what honestly appeals to me about God’s Law.  God’s Law seeks more than equal punishment for a crime.  God’s Law pushes us to look beyond the action and into the heart of the person.

As the easiest example, take the passages about the bull who gores someone.  They seem odd to us in a modern society, but in an agrarian society this would be a big issue.  A person cannot be held responsible for a bull who gets angry and gores someone.  In other words, we cannot be held responsible for actions that we cannot control.  However, if we know that a bull has a propensity for goring, then a person can be held responsible if they don’t take reasonable precautions!  If some bull of mine hates people and gores every single person he sees, if I don’t build a fence or tie it up properly, then I am responsible for the negligence of my actions!  I am responsible, not for the bull’s action but for my utter thoughtlessness.

We see the same thing in the passage about the pit.  If I dig a pit and walk away, I am responsible for any injury that my hole makes.  Who digs a hole and then leaves it there for people to get injured unless it is either their intent to cause injury or the person is so self-absorbed that they don’t think?  However, if I dig a pit, responsibly cover it, and someone comes along and undoes my protection over it an injures themselves, then I am not responsible.

This naturally leads into the introductory laws where we talk about murder and injury of human beings.  If I intend to injury or kill someone, I am responsible and should pay a reasonable consequence.  However, if I am simply going about my life and an injury happens, then that is simply life.  Again, though, I would personally add negligence to this.  If I am going about my life and I don’t cause injury to someone, but because of my negligence someone becomes injured, then I am guilty!  At the very least I am guilty of my thoughtlessness and lack of concern for my fellow man.

For me, this is a powerful concept in the modern culture.  Our whole lives are ever-increasingly wrapped around our personal feeds in social media.  Our lives are quite literally wrapping around us so tightly that we are no longer the center of our own existence but sometimes become the entirety of our existence!  There are people who go through life so wrapped up in themselves that they pay no heed to the fact that the things they do affect other people!  This self-centeredness is genuine negligence with respect to the community.

I see it all over the place.  I see self-centered thoughtlessness every time I drive down the road.  How often do I see someone leave trash behind without throwing it into a garbage bin?  How often do I meet someone talking on a phone who is completely clueless about the place they choose to stop and have a conversation and how it might be in the natural flow of foot traffic around them?  How often do I see photos that people have taken of themselves who don’t realize what else the things in their photo reveal?

We need to be conscious about what we do.  We need to think about how we impact the world around us.  We need to be thoughtful people, taking into consideration how our words, actions, and possessions might just influence the people who are around us and who are sharing our space.

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