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flames, "Thou shalt not kill," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will find a moot court in session, trying law points—settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence, in almost every chapter. Num. xxxv. 10—22; Deut. xi. 11, and xix. 4—6; Lev. xxiv. 19—22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of many cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master designed to kill. (1.) "If a man smite his servant with a rod.—The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16, 18. A rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon—hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant die under his hand, then the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for, to strike him with a rod until he dies, argues a great many blows and great violence, and this kept up to the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence "He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, together with the kind of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all made a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nakam, here rendered punished, is not so rendered in another instance. Yet it occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is translated "avenge," in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance alone, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, it (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators
