21:7-11
“When a man sells a daughter as a slave ..” This strikes us as a terrible thing, and indeed it is, but we do need to appreciate that the whole culture and system was so different in those days. “She shall not go out as the male slaves do”. This again strikes us as grossly unfair. However, women were dependent upon men, and the slave owner had responsibilities towards the slaves. So letting the female slave go would not have been letting her go off into freedom, but casting her out defenceless. The slave owner had to take proper responsibility for her, whether he decided he liked her or not. What all these verses say is that the man could not react on a whim, he had to look after her properly. Failing this, he had to let her go without price. So these laws are restraining wrong behaviour.
21:12
We now come to a series of commands to do with punishments for various crimes. Again, we should remember that times were different! There was not a well-established legal system as we have today, and some of the commands are limiting retribution. We also do well to remember that our own legal systems are far from perfect and there are many injustices today. Moreover, some of the failings lie on the side of not punishing severely enough, not taking crime as seriously as it should be taken. There can also be a lack of justice for the poor, or even the not very rich.
First of all we have “whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death”. Now come think that the death penalty is unchristian. In my opinion this is nonsense. In fact one could make quite the opposite case. The Bible has the death penalty because life is sacred, and the taking of life is such a heinous crime. It can be argued that our legal systems do not treat life seriously enough.
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