Exodus 21:16

16 "Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells him or the person is found in his possession.

Exodus 21:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 21:16

And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him
One of the children of Israel, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and so the Septuagint version: but though this law was given to the Israelites primarily, yet was made for men stealers in general, as the apostle observes, who plainly has reference to it, ( 1 Timothy 1:9 1 Timothy 1:10 ) :

or if he be found in his hand;
before the selling of him, as Jarchi notes, since he stole him in order to sell him, he was guilty of death, as follows:

he shall surely be put to death;
with strangling, as the same Jewish writer remarks, as on the preceding verse; and Jarchi sets it down as a rule, that all death in the law, simply expressed, is strangling.

Exodus 21:16 In-Context

14 If a person willfully acts against his neighbor to murder him by scheming, you must take him from My altar to be put to death.
15 "Whoever strikes his father or his mother must be put to death.
16 "Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells him or the person is found in his possession.
17 "Whoever curses his father or his mother must be put to death.
18 "When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist, and the injured man does not die but is confined to bed,
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