If a man smite his servant, &c.— The equity of these laws is apparent to every reader, though the Jewish Rabbis have done all they could to restrict and render them unworthy the Divine Lawgiver. The law here refers undoubtedly to servants in general, not to Hebrew ones only; cruelty to whom is forbidden, by appointing to that master, who should so beat his servant as to slay him upon the spot, the punishment due to a murderer. Calmet has well observed of how much higher and better a spirit this lenity to slaves is demonstrative, than the absolute and unlimited power over them which was allowed among the wisest heathens, the Athenians, Lacedemonians, Romans, &c. Even Plato, in his republic, the laws of which he wanted to form on the justest model, gives his sanction to the same practice: "He who kills his own slave," says he, "shall be acquitted; whoso, in anger, kills another's, shall pay double the price of him." The Emperor Adrian was the first who softened the rigour of the laws respecting slaves; and afterwards Antoninus Pius expressly appointed death for the master who slew his slave without any just cause. It is unpleasing to reflect, that, in the times of Christianity, there are many who profess that faith, and yet do not act with such equity towards their slaves, as even the Mosaic law itself enjoins! See Exodus 21:26-27.
Related Commentaries of Exodus 21:20
Exodus 21:20
20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.e