What Does Exodus 21:28 Mean in the King James?
If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.
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 ox receives the death sentence and is barred from becoming food, while the owner is declared clear: the verse separates consequence for the act from guilt by ownership.
THE MEANING
When an ox kills a man or woman, the killing is not treated as ordinary property damage: the ox is stoned and its flesh is withheld from food. The owner is declared clear in the case stated here, so ownership by itself does not become guilt. The verse holds the death and the limits of liability in view at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that ownership alone proves guilt when an animal causes a death. It distinguishes the animal’s consequence from the owner’s liability in this stated case.
THE ROOT
נָקִי
naqiy
GROWS FROM
נקה
naqah
To be clean, clear, or free from guilt or liability.
The owner’s “quit” is the word for being clean or clear, so liability is a status the verse names rather than assumes from possession. This root joins cleanness with legal clearance: the owner is declared free of liability in this case.
ALSO GROWS
naqiy: Clear, innocent, or free from guilt; the word used for the owner here.
נָקִי
It names the owner’s stated status after the ox’s fatal act.
niqqah: To clear or leave unpunished.
נִקָּה
This form shows the root’s legal sense of being cleared, which illuminates what “quit” means here.
בַּעַל
baal
GROWS FROM
בעל
baal
To own or possess; the noun can mean an owner, master, or husband.
The same word can name an owner, master, or husband, placing the focus on a relationship of possession or control. Here it identifies the person whose liability is judged, while the verse still declares that person clear in this case.
ALSO GROWS
baal: Owner, master, or husband.
בַּעַל
This is the word identifying the ox’s owner in the verse.
bealim: Owners, masters, or husbands; the plural form.
בְּעָלִים
The plural carries the same ownership relation, showing that “owner” names a role rather than deciding guilt by itself.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks human life as something whose loss or endangerment brings a named account.
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.THE THREAD
But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.The next verse names what changes the owner’s status: the ox had gored before, the owner had been told, and the owner failed to restrain it. That makes “quit” a judgment for the case stated here, not blanket immunity for an owner.
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