The Bible

 

Exodus 21

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1 And these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

2 If thou buy a Hebrew bondman, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

3 If he came in alone, he shall go out alone: if he had a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone.

5 But if the bondman shall say distinctly, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free;

6 then his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or to the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall be his bondman for ever.

7 And if a man shall sell his daughter as a handmaid, she shall not go out as the bondmen go out.

8 If she is unacceptable in the eyes of her master, who had taken her for himself, then shall he let her be ransomed: to sell her unto a foreign people he hath no power, after having dealt unfaithfully with her.

9 And if he have appointed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the law of daughters.

10 If he take himself another, her food, her clothing, and her conjugal rights he shall not diminish.

11 And if he do not these three things unto her, then shall she go out free without money.

12 He that striketh a man, so that he die, shall certainly be put to death.

13 But if he have not lain in wait, and God have delivered [him] into his hand, I will appoint thee a place to which he shall flee.

14 But if a man act wantonly toward his neighbour, and slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

15 And he that striketh his father, or his mother, shall certainly be put to death.

16 And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall certainly be put to death.

17 And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall certainly be put to death.

18 And if men dispute, and one strike the other with a stone, or with the fist, and he die not, but take to [his] bed,

19 -- if he rise, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that struck [him] be guiltless; only he shall pay [for] the loss of his time, and shall cause [him] to be thoroughly healed.

20 And if a man strike his bondman or his handmaid with a staff, and he die under his hand, he shall certainly be avenged.

21 Only, if he continue [to live] a day or two days, he shall not be avenged; for he is his money.

22 And if men strive together, and strike a woman with child, so that she be delivered, and no mischief happen, he shall in any case be fined, according as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and shall give it as the judges estimate.

23 But if mischief happen, then thou shalt give life for life,

24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 branding for branding, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

26 And if a man strike the eye of his bondman or the eye of his handmaid, and it be marred, he shall let him go for his eye.

27 And if he knock out his bondman's tooth or his handmaid's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth.

28 And if an ox gore a man or a woman, so that they die, then the ox shall certainly be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be guiltless.

29 But if the ox have gored heretofore, and it have been testified to its owner, and he have not kept it in, and it kill a man or a woman, -- the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

30 If there be imposed on him a satisfaction, then he shall give the ransom of his life, according to what is imposed on him.

31 Whether it gore a son or gore a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done to him.

32 If the ox gore a bondman or a handmaid, he shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

33 -- And if a man open a pit, or if a man dig a pit, and do not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall into it,

34 the owner of the pit shall make it good, shall give money to the owner of them; and the dead [ox] shall be his.

35 -- And if one man's ox gore his neighbour's ox, and it die, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money thereof, and divide the dead also.

36 Or if it be known that the ox have gored heretofore, and its owner have not kept him in, he shall in any case restore ox for ox; and the dead shall be his.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9132

Study this Passage

  
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9132. 'He shall be sold for his theft' means alienation. This is clear from the meaning of 'being sold' as alienation, dealt with in 4752, 4758, 5886, at this point the alienation of the good or truth that has been taken away, and of which nothing remains, 9131; and from the meaning of 'for his theft' as making amends and undertaking restoration with some other good or truth in place of that which has been taken away, meant by 'making repayment', 9130. For the thief was sold in order that repayment might be made for the theft.

What this verse implies is that when a person can see that good or truth with him is being taken away by falsity arising from evil he is guilty of the violence done to them, since he knows full well what he is doing. For when a person knows full well what he is doing his deeds spring from his will and at the same time from his understanding, and so from his entire person since a person is a person by virtue of both those powers of mind. And a deed springing from both springs from falsity that arises out of evil - from falsity because it springs from the understanding, and from evil because it springs from the will. This is what makes the person guilty.

A person makes that his own which comes from his understanding and at the same time from his will, see 9009, 9069, 9071.

A person becomes guilty if he does not use his power of understanding to restrain evil in his will when he sees it, 9075.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Commentary

 

Own

  

In many cases, the spiritual meaning of "own," both as a verb and as an adjective, is relatively literal. When people are described as the "Lord's own," however, it specifically means those people who know Him and have His Word. This has taken various forms since the dawn of humanity; in the prehistoric church known as the "Most Ancient Church" the Lord's truth -- the direct expression of His love -- flowed into people directly. In the Ancient Church the Lord's Word was recognized in nature and in the form of deeply representative stories, some of which were passed on to us in the early chapters of Genesis. Among the Children of Israel the Lord's Word was expressed through the Ten Commandments, the laws of Moses, the very history of the nation of Israel and the various psalms and prophecies. The early Christians had those stories along with the teaching and inspiration of Jesus himself. We now have the whole Bible, including the teachings of Jesus, and can understand the Bible's true meaning. Each of these churches, then, was at some point the Lord's own.