Exodus 21:12–17

This is not a new law. To Noah God had said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image" (Gen. 9:6). God said He would require the life of man at the hand of every man's brother. So He made man his brother's keeper. He guarded the man He had made in His own image by the most solemn penalty He could impose. Life belongs to Him, and He could not let anyone else trespass on what is His alone.

The image of God expresses man's place and responsibility of representing God... The murderer does not only interfere with man and injure him to the last degree. By killing a man he also defaces God's image, and God sentences him to die. Murder is an unwarrantable seizing of what belongs to God. Only the death of the murderer upholds God's honour and maintains God's will.

God's command gave it being, so it can never stop carrying His authority, whether men listen or refuse to listen. One part of the charge stands out above the rest: man is responsible to put to death the one who sheds man's blood... So the idea that this is in any way a right belonging to man is cut off. It is a right of God. Ever since the flood He has been pleased to entrust it to human keeping. Those in authority are bound to enforce it in subjection to Him, and one day they must give account to Him for how they used it.

Life belongs to God. As the Giver of life He exercises His right: He demands the life of the one who has taken a life he cannot restore. The sentence cannot be reduced. Even if a murderer took hold of God's altar, it would do him no good. Joab's case shows this (1 Kings 2:28-34).

The New Testament reminds us that the earthly authority "does not bear the sword in vain" (Rom. 13:4). This shows that the coming of grace in Christ has not cancelled what God has established about government in the earth. Authorised government takes its course, but murder is strictly forbidden.

The word of God gives no support to the modern movement to abolish the death penalty. It substitutes human ideas in the place of God's original law. In fact, it exalts man over God. Our Lord's directions in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:38-48) apply only to relationships among fellow-subjects of His kingdom, not to those between man and man. So they in no way set aside the command given to Noah.

Apply these laws to what the Jewish nation did to Christ. They did "lie in wait," and in the end they used bribery and cunning to secure His arrest and condemnation. It might seem that no escape was possible for them. But our Lord Himself prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). So if they repent, God in grace will count it as ignorance on the ground of that prayer, and give them a city of refuge for escape and safety... Grace can relieve from the penalty of the law, on the ground of the atonement for sin that Christ worked out by His death.

To Noah God had said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." He would demand the life of man from every man's brother. So man was made his brother's keeper. God protected the one He had made in His own image by the most solemn penalty He could exact. Life belongs to Him, and so He could not allow another to trespass on His prerogative.

There is, however, in Exodus 21:13 a notable exception made. Deuteronomy 19 and Numbers 35 deal with this provision in fuller detail, where they speak of the cities of refuge. How precious is the grace and the compassion of the heart of God, expressed in Deuteronomy 19:6! The avenger of blood, with his heart hot, must not overtake the manslayer and strike him down because the road is long — when he did not deserve to die, since he had not hated him beforehand.

How often had they sought to take Jesus! But this could not happen until God Himself delivered Him into their hands. So Jesus said to Pilate, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above." In grace their terrible deed is not regarded as wilful. It is attributed to God having delivered up Jesus by His determinate counsel and foreknowledge (Acts 2:23).

Apply these statutes to the action of the Jewish nation against Christ. Remember how they did "lie in wait," and how they at last succeeded by bribery and cunning in getting Him arrested and condemned. It might seem as if there were no possible escape for them. But our Lord Himself prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." So God in grace, if they repent, will count it ignorance in them on the ground of this intercession, and appoint them a city of refuge for escape and safety… Grace can relieve from the penalty of the law, on the ground of the atonement for sin that the death of Christ worked out.

God Himself provided the cities of refuge; He would not have the manslayer treated as a murderer; nor will He have you treated as guilty of the murder of His Son, if you flee to Christ, the refuge He has provided in the richness of His mercy. The manslayer's hope was liberty through the death of the High Priest; those God shelters now hope to enter His presence and glory at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here we have a very exact description of the man for whom God provided the city of refuge. If he did not answer to it, the city was not for him. But if he did, he might feel the most perfect assurance that a gracious God had thought of him. God had found a refuge for him, where he might be as safe as the hand of God could make him. Once the slayer found himself inside the city of refuge, he might breathe freely… No avenging sword could reach him there, not a hair of his head could be touched there.

Whoever was guilty of murder was himself to be put to death. Whatever people may say today against the death penalty in cases of proven murder, at least they cannot say it is unjust. But if the case was not deliberate murder but manslaughter, the law provided a city of refuge where the guilty man could flee for safety. On this, see Deuteronomy 19:1-3. But where the murder was premeditated, the penalty was death (v. 14).

To Noah God had said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image" (Genesis 9:6). He would demand the life of man from every man's brother. So man was made his brother's keeper. God guarded the one He had made in His own image with the most solemn penalty He could exact. Life belongs to Him, and He could not allow anyone else to take what is His alone... For wilful murder there was no release from the penalty, even if the murderer had fled for protection to God's altar.

Joab flees to the tabernacle and takes hold of the horns of the altar. That cannot save him. The Word of God is against him: "But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die" (Ex. 21:14). Solomon remembers this. Once Joab's judgment is settled, it is too late for the altar to shelter him.

In Scripture horns stand for strength... The horns of the altar suggest that everything the altar stood for came to a point here, focused and intensified... It also explains the significance of a guilty man coming here for refuge and laying hold of them. Adonijah sought safety there and found it (1 Kings 1:50). Joab, at the same place of asylum, met the just reward of his sins (1 Kings 2:28-34).

The horns of the altar became a place of refuge. No one could break into that sanctuary. It sheltered everyone who had a right to its protection on the ground of the sprinkled blood. Joab sought this protection when he fled from Solomon (1 Kings 2:28). But he had no claim on it, for he was a murderer, and Solomon had him killed. It is the same with a sinner in desperate trouble. He would gladly claim the benefits of the death of Christ to escape judgment, while his heart is still far from Him. But where someone truly trusts the value of that sacrifice, no power in earth or hell can touch the soul that rests under its shelter.

Apply these statutes to what the Jewish nation did against Christ. They did "lie in wait," and in the end they succeeded by bribery and trickery in having Him arrested and condemned. It might seem there was no escape for them. But our Lord Himself prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). So God in grace, if they repent, will count it as ignorance on the ground of that prayer. He will appoint them a city of refuge for escape and safety. So Peter, preaching to them, said, "I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers" (Acts 3:17). Grace can relieve from the penalty of the law, on the ground of the atonement for sin made by the death of Christ.

Exodus 21:12-17 lists certain offences that carry the death penalty, and murder is named among them. But this is no new law, as Genesis 9:5-6 plainly shows. God alone knows the heart of man, and He has called it "deceitful above all things and incurably wicked." When He gave Noah the government of the earth, He made provision for guarding man's life in the most solemn terms — terms no human laws can set aside.

The law is made for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who beat their fathers and those who beat their mothers… the fourth pair is violent contempt for parents, stopping short of killing. Compare Ex. 21:15.

Both striking and cursing father or mother (vv. 15, 17) carried the same penalty. In this way God set up parental authority under the holy sanctions of His law, and He required children to treat it with reverence. Disobedience to parents is given as one sign of the dangerous times of the last days (2 Tim. 3:2). That shows how highly God values the subjection of children to their parents. For it is God's authority that parents represent, and so that authority is absolute when it is used for God. It demands full and unconditional obedience. (See Deut. 21:18-21; Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20.) So these sins are grave ones. But if striking and cursing earthly parents deserves death, how much worse is open rebellion against God.

Setting up one's own will against a parent's authority is akin, in a lower way, to renouncing the true God for a false one.

This is not only God's authority giving commands, nor even His statements about where actions lead. It is the order He has set up in the relationships He established among people, above all the place of parents. To be subject to them is really to own God in His order. It is the first commandment with promise.

We also see the severity of God on display in the law. It passes the death sentence on sins that people today do not count worthy of death — verses 15, 16 and 17, for instance. Yet we must remember that the wages of sin — of all sin — is death.

Believers in Christ are not under law but under grace. That does not free us from these obligations, because the great point to press is obedience to a God-given authority. Under grace, as Paul teaches in his letter to the Ephesians, we rise higher in keeping these things, since heavenly motives now move us.

This section holds the various "judgments" or statutes that God gave to govern His people in all their relationships… They give a striking view of God's care for everything that touched the walk and ways of His people. And if penalties are attached to breaking these laws, that only fits the arrangement He had now set up.

If in Exodus 21 we get judgments which give an extension to "You shall not murder," we find in Exodus 22 judgments giving an extension to "You shall not steal."

The law's demands were most stern, as verse 15 shows… A kidnapper also was to be put to death, whether he had sold his victim or whether he held him as a captive (v. 16).

Exodus 21:12-17 lists certain offences that carry the death penalty, and murder is named among them. But this is no new command, as Genesis 9:5-6 clearly shows. When God gave Noah the government of the earth, He provided for the preservation of man's life in the most solemn terms, which no human laws can set aside… Life belongs to God. As the Giver of life He requires the life of anyone who has taken a life he cannot restore, and the sentence cannot be softened.

Man-stealing and man-selling — slavery in fact, as still practised in many parts of the world — also carried the penalty of death (v. 16). A man may be a sinner. God has claims on him too, claims that must be met before he can be delivered. Even so, he is of such value in God's sight that his fellow man must treat his liberty as sacred. How astonishing that professed followers of Christ could defend slavery in its worst forms — stealing, selling, and holding men as mere property — with such a scripture in front of them, and within living memory!

A creditor might take a pledge from his poor neighbour, but not the hand-mill that ground his grain day by day. That would be taking a man's life as a pledge. And the greed that would go so far as to steal the man himself was to be punished with death.

Paul sent Onesimus, a runaway slave, back to his master, who was a Christian, and did not demand his release. Instead he beautifully puts it to Philemon that he should have Onesimus no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother… Christianity taught equal treatment of slaves, as we see in several of the letters in which masters are addressed: "men-stealers" are condemned. 1 Timothy 1:10.