Exodus 21:16

16 " 'And {whoever kidnaps someone} and sells him, or he is found in his possession, he will surely be put to death.

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 if a man schemes against his neighbor to kill him by treachery, you will take him from my altar to die.

15 And {whoever strikes} his father or his mother will surely be put to death.

16 " 'And {whoever kidnaps someone} and sells him, or he is found in his possession, he will surely be put to death.

17 " 'And one who curses his father or his mother will surely be put to death.

18 " 'And if men quarrel and a man strikes his neighbor with a stone or with a fist and he does not die, but {he is confined to bed},

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "a stealer of a man"
• [b] Literally "in his hand"