What Does Exodus 21:26 Mean?
And if a man strikes the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, so that it is ruined, he sends him free for the sake of his eye.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.THE KEY
The law makes one destroyed eye enough to end the master’s hold over the whole person: bodily harm triggers release.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks wherever one person has power over another’s body. When a blow destroys a servant’s eye, the servant is sent out free; the injury changes the relation between them, and release becomes due. The eye is named as the reason, not a loss the servant must silently absorb.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person’s status as a servant makes bodily injury theirs to endure without redress.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ
yeshalchennu
GROWS FROM
ש-ל-ח
sh-l-ḥ
send, send forth, release, let go
“sends him free” in this verse is yeshalchennu. The verb for freeing the servant means to send him out. Freedom here is a concrete departure from the master’s control.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: to send, send forth, release, or let go
שָׁלַח
This is the root of the verse’s verb: the servant’s freedom takes the form of being sent out.
Shiloach: a stream or pool associated with waters sent forth
שִׁלֹחַ
The name carries the same send-forth root; here, as in the verse, what is released moves outward.
עֵין
ʿein
GROWS FROM
ע-י-ן
ʿ-y-n
eye; the same Hebrew word also names a spring or well
English names only the damaged organ, while Hebrew uses the same word for an eye and a spring. Here, injury to that opening is the stated hinge on which the servant’s release turns.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: eye
עַיִן
This is the servant’s actual injured eye; its destruction triggers release.
ʿeinot: springs or wells
עֵינוֹת
The related form names an opening where water emerges, placing the image of a spring beside the eye whose injury brings freedom.
THE PATTERN
When bodily harm meets bondage, scripture makes release visible and concrete.
And if he ruins his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth, he sends him free for the sake of his tooth.To open blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the prison, and those who settle in darkness out of the prison house.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And when you send him out unbound from you, you shall not send him away empty.The same root ש-ל-ח (shalach, send or release) appears in both verses: release means sending the servant out from another’s control. Deuteronomy makes that departure tangible by saying he must not go away empty.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us