What Does Exodus 21:20 Mean in the King James?
And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse names vengeance as the consequence when a servant dies under his master’s hand, so that death cannot be absorbed into the master’s authority.
THE MEANING
When a person in power strikes a servant with a rod and the servant dies under that hand, the verse declares that the one who struck is answerable. Its repeated verb names vengeance, placing the death and its consequence in the same sentence. The violence remains starkly visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A master’s authority makes a servant’s death a private matter beyond consequence.
THE ROOT
נָקֹם יִנָּקֵם
nāqōm yinnāqēm
GROWS FROM
נקם
n-q-m
to avenge; to exact retribution
The verse repeats the root in an infinitive and a verb: literally, “avenging, he shall be avenged.” “Surely punished” conveys certainty, while the Hebrew also names vengeance explicitly: the hand responsible for the death remains answerable.
ALSO GROWS
nāqām: vengeance; retribution
נָקָם
This noun makes explicit the force carried by the repeated verb in the verse: the servant’s death calls for reckoning.
yuqqam: shall be avenged (Genesis 4:15)
יֻקַּם
This form uses the same root in the phrase “vengeance shall be taken,” linking the verse’s consequence to a wider language of vengeance.
THE PATTERN
A person’s power over another does not erase accountability when the vulnerable person is harmed.
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.The same נקם (n-q-m, “avenge”) root stands behind “vengeance shall be taken” here and the repeated verb translated “he shall surely be punished” in Exodus 21:20. Genesis uses that language to mark the consequence of killing Cain; Exodus uses it when a servant dies under his master’s hand.
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