Exodus 21:28-36

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is for every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. We're getting into Exodus 21, the end of the chapter dealing with laws about animals. So why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into the Lord's Word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. We pray that you would please help us. Help us, Lord, to understand it. And Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would give us hearts to apply it in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we are at Exodus chapter 21 beginning at verse 28.
If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, then the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall be acquitted. But if the ox tended to thrust with its horns in times past, and it has been made known to its owner, and he has not kept it confined, so that it has killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. If there is imposed on him a sum of money, then he shall pay to redeem his life, whatever is imposed on him, whether it has gored a son or gored a daughter. According to this judgment it shall be done to him. If the ox gores a male or a female servant, then he shall give to their master 30 shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls in it, the owner of the pit shall make it good, and he shall give money to the owner, but the dead animal shall be his. If one man's ox hurts another so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the money from it. And the dead ox they shall also divide. Or if it was known that the ox tended to thrust in past times and its owner has not kept it confined, he shall surely pay ox for ox and the dead animal shall be his own. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what do we call it to do in response to these words? So what's this passage about?
This is a real society and God's setting laws for animal control. How do you deal with farm animals who do things that can be dangerous and violent? And then as we move to calling, we need to ask ourselves, these laws don't necessarily apply directly one for one from one society into the next, but what's the underlying principle? As the Westminster Confession talks about, what's the general equity of these laws? What do they teach us at the core of their truth, and then how does that tie into our lives? As we get into this, there's kind of three different scenarios here.
The first is an animal who is violent and it hurts someone or gores someone or even maybe kills them. The next is what happens if somebody digs a pit and the animal falls into it. The last scenario is what happens if there's a violent animal and the animal hurts another animal. What do you do with that? Well, in the first scenario, an animal against a person. If an animal just does this out of the blue, it gores another person, it lowers its horns, and it thrusts itself at someone, then that animal is to be put to death.
It's a violent animal. You need to be careful. But the owner, the owner is free. You can't hold someone liable if you never knew that this animal was able to do this. Animals do unexpected things. But if people have told him before, hey, that animal, that's a violent animal. It chased after me the other day. It tried to gore me the other day.
And the owner doesn't do anything to confine the animal, then that owner There's two options. Either he's put to death or he's able to redeem his life. If that animal gores someone, both the animal dies and the owner dies. Or the victim's family is able to say, we don't want him put to death.
Maybe they have pity in their hearts, mercy in their hearts, and they think, you know, it's been years since that animal did that. I don't know the situation. And so they say, instead, you could pay a hundred shekels of silver. Almost like life insurance money. We're sorry that this happened.
And so he's able to, and it doesn't matter if it was a son or a daughter, a man or a woman, right? This, he has to make restitution for life. Notice that this means that all that in the Hebrew Israelite code, all life is sacred. It doesn't even matter if it was a slave.
If it was a slave, you have to pay 30 shekels. The next scenario is what happens if somebody digs a pit and somebody's animal falls into it? Well, then you have to pay for that animal, right? You have to pay for that animal. And guess what? You just bought it. It's yours now. And so you have, you have no choice. You've just bought a whole cow, a whole ox. You have to, you get to fill your freezer. Congratulations. Right? It's, you gotta make it good.
Verse 34, the owner of the pit shall make it good. And then verse 35, what happens now in this section if an animal gores another animal? Well, again, it depends on whether or not the person knew it. So verse 35. Then they shall sell the live ox and divide the money from it. And the dead ox they shall also divide. So the violent animal is still killed. They sell the meat from the other animal and they divide the money. Half and a half. It's not a great scenario, but it's gotta happen.
And then in verse 36, but if it was known that the ox had this tendency to thrust and pass time, and the owner has not kept it confined, he shall surely pay ox for ox. Again, this is lex talionis, this law of retribution, he can't go less than this, he's gotta make it right, ox for ox. Not only does he have to kill his own ox, now he has to pay entirely for that other man's ox, and the dead animal shall be his own. So what's, What's the underlying principle of this?
There are dangerous animals and those dangerous animals need to be taken care of. This is part of the dominion mandate. If there's an animal who's been known to be violent then it is human responsibility to to have animal control. There are some animals that if they have a tendency to attack other people or attack other animals, then they shouldn't be in human society. That doesn't mean that there aren't other animals that are domesticated and are doing their job well. They're fine.
But it also teaches us that human life is sacred. That's one of the other things that teaches us here is that animal life does not supersede human life. What else does it teach us? It teaches us once again, that law of retribution, right? That there's gotta be equity in the law. Notice his ox gore someone and it's not that they're able to now kill his firstborn son. No, that's, that's not how it happens, right? There's, there's, there's equity in this. Well, That's all fine and dandy, but how does this tie into the gospel at all, right?
If everything in the law, if everything in the Bible is meant to point us to God, teach us about God and show us our need for Christ or how Christ has loved us, how does this do this? God is a God of justice and of equity. We see here that God orders society in such a way that there is sin. He restrains that sin. He restrains the fallen nature of the world. And even all creation, even animals grown for the day of redemption. Oxes, killing oxes and oxes thrusting at people. This is not what we see in the Garden of Eden. We long for the day of redemption. We long for the day that Jesus Christ will come back and the lion will lay down with the lamb. When the infant will lie down with a lion, right? When the cobra and the infant will share the same bed, right? And there won't be this danger.
It's a day we're looking forward to once again. So this is what God is pointing us to, right? His law is there and it's good. But the law is also there. because we live in a fallen world. So we long for that day where this won't be the case anymore. Jesus Christ is returning.
Take hope. Take hope. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We pray that we would value human life. We thank you for provisions in your law, for living in a real and fallen world. Father, we pray that you would please Let us long for that day of redemption. Thank you that you have promised it. In Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the light of God's face shining upon you. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.