Exodus 21:16

16 "Whoever kidnaps another person must be put to death, whether he has sold the kidnapped person or still has him.

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 But whenever someone becomes so angry that he plans to kill his neighbor, you must take him away from my altar and put him to death.
15 "Whoever hits his father or mother must be put to death.
16 "Whoever kidnaps another person must be put to death, whether he has sold the kidnapped person or still has him.
17 "Whoever curses his father or mother must be put to death.
18 "This is what you must do whenever men quarrel and one hits the other with a rock or with his fist and injures him so that he has to stay in bed.
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