Exodus 21:16

Exo 21:16 And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

Ver. 16. He that stealeth a man.] Akin to these are they that steal other men’s books, and father them, setting them out in their own names. Diagoras was so served by a plagiary, which, when he saw, and that the thief was not presently struck with a thunderbolt, he, out of stomach, turned atheist. Thus, of late, Fabricius stole Tremelius’s Syriac translation. Villavincentius stole Hyperius’s treatise, "De Ratione Studii Theologici." And Possevinus stole Dr James’s "Cyprianus Redivivus."

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo_21:16

He that stealeth a man.

About kidnapping

The same law is repeated in Deu_24:7; from which passage it is evident that it treats of kidnapping a Hebrew. And thus the severity of the punishment, death, without the possibility of redemption, cannot appear surprising. For all Israelites are considered as free citizens with inalienable and equal rights, of which they can never be entirely divested. Now it is natural that he who steals an Israelite will, in the rarest cases, keep him as his slave or sell him to an Israelite, as the injured person could, in the Holy Land, easily find means to inform the authorities of his fate, and thus cause the punishment of his criminal master. The latter, therefore, generally sold the kidnapped individual to foreign merchants into distant lands, either to Egyptians, who commanded the land commerce to the south, or to Phoenicians, who influenced the trade to the west; and opportunities of selling must have easily offered themselves, as Palestine was situated in the exact centre of the commerce of the East. But by such sale, free Israelites became permanent slaves; they forfeited with their liberty their chief characteristic as Hebrews, and were thus lost to the Hebrew community, the more so, as the exclusive intercourse with pagans must necessarily defile the purity of their faith, and gradually accustom their thoughts to idolatry. For this reason it was in the Mosaic law, interdicted to sell even thieves into foreign countries, because thereby souls are, as it were, extirpated from Israel. Thus he who kidnapped Israelites and sold them to other countries justly deserved death, especially if we consider the most melancholy and bitter lot to which the slaves of heathen nations were generally doomed. (M. M. Kalisch, P h. D.)

Unrighteousness of slave holding

At the time slaves were held in the State of New York, one of them, escaping into Vermont, was captured and taken before the court at Middlebury by his owner, who asked the court to give him possession of his slave property. Judge Harrington listened attentively to the proofs of ownership, but said that he was not convinced that the title was perfect. Then the counsel asked what more was required. Until you bring me a bill of sale from God Almighty you cannot have this man. (J. Swinton.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo 21:16. He that stealeth a man — Whether he keep him in his own hands for his own use, or sell him, still it is a theft of a heinous kind, and the man-stealer deserves death. It appears from 1Ti 1:9-10, that this law was not meant to be of a merely temporary nature, but of standing force.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 16. He that stealeth a man] By this law every man-stealer, and every receiver of the stolen person, should lose his life; no matter whether the latter stole the man himself, or gave money to a slave captain or negro-dealer to steal him for him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Man-stealing. Cf. Deu_24:7, where the present law is merely expanded, and recast in Deuteronomic phraseology.

a man] in Deu_24:7, expressly limited to an Israelite: so LXX Targ. add here, ‘of the children of Israel.’ No doubt this interprets correctly the intention of the law.

and selleth him] into a foreign country is probably what is thought (cf. v. 8). This would not only sever the victim cruelly from his own people, and his own religion (1Sa_26:19), but also expose him to many risks of death. The Phoenicians (Amo_1:9, and, at a later time, Joe_3:4-6), to say nothing of other nations (Gen_37:36), would be ready purchasers of slaves.

or if he be found in his hand] i.e. if he has not yet actually sold him.

shall be put to death] The same punishment in Ḥamm. § 14. At Athens, the ἀνδραποδιστής, who enslaved a free man, or enticed away another person’s slave, was punished with death (Hermann, Griech. Antiq. iii. §§ xii. 12; lxii. 12: cf. Demosth. Phil. i. p. 53 end, § 47; Xen. Memor. i. 2. 62): among the Romans both the seller and the buyer of a free-born citizen were punished with death (Kn.).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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, Ti1 1:9,

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

i.e. In the manstealer’s hand; q.d. though he keep him in his own hands for his own use; for still it is a theft, and he is made that man’s slave, and it is in his power to sell him to another when he pleaseth, and therefore deserves death.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16, 17. Stealeth a man — Note that manstealing was placed on the same plane with the crime of murder. Cursing a parent was also treated as a capital offence.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He that stealeth a man. Kidnapping, or stealing men to make them slaves, was a very early and very wide-spread crime. Joseph"s brothers must be regarded as having committed it; (Gen_37:28) and there are many traces of it in the remains of antiquity. (See Heb 4:183; Strab. 7. p. 467; Sueton. Octav. etc.) Most kidnapping was of foreigners; and this was a practice of which the laws of states took no cognizance, though a certain disrepute may have attached to it. But the kidnapping of a fellow-country-man was generally punished with severity. At Athens it was a capital offence. At Rome it made a man infamous. We may gather from Deu_24:7, that the Mosaic law was especially levelled against this lena of the crime, though the words of the present passage are general, and forbid the crime altogether. Man-stealing, in the general sense, is now regarded as an offence by the chief civilised states of Europe and America, and is punished by confiscation of the stolen goods, and sometimes by imprisonment of the man-stealers.

The crime of man-stealing.

To steal the purse of a man is a trivial crime; to filch his good name is a serious one; but the worst robbery of all is to steal his person. Civilised, refined, polished, intellectual men, happy in the enjoyment of freedom, wealth, honour, domestic happiness, have gone to sleep in comfort, peace, and fancied security, to wake up in the grip of lawless man-stealers, who have bound them and carried them into a hopeless captivity, far from any relative or friend, to become familiar with every sort of ill-usage and indignity. Cilician and other pirates did this in the olden time; Norman sea-kings in the middle ages; Algerine corsairs so late as the last century. The blood boils when we think of the sufferings inflicted on thousands of our species by these fiends in human shape, without pity, without conscience, without remorse. Death was certainly a punishment not one whit too severe for this atrocious crime, by which the happiest of the human race might become suddenly one of the most wretched. In modern times, the conscience of mankind, enlightened by eighteen centuries of Christianity, has revolted against the enormity long committed with impunity on the negro races of Western Africa, and the slave-trade has been proclaimed a form of piracy. Yet the accursed traffic still continues in the centre and in the east of the "Dark Continent;" still quiet villagers are awakened in the dead of night by the news that the kidnapper is upon them; harmless, peaceable men, together with their wives and children, are carried off in hundreds by Arab and sometimes by so-called Christian traders, driven to the coast in gangs, shipped in crowded dhows, and sold to the best bidder in the marts of Arabia and Persia. It is a subject well worthy the consideration of Christian governments, whether a revival of the Mosaic enactment is not required, to stop a trade the profits of which are so enormous, that nothing short of death is likely to deter avaricious men from engaging in it.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

וגנב איש ומכרו AND HE THAT STEALETH A MAN, AND SELLETH HIM, [AND HE BE PREVIOUSLY FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH] — Why is this statement made (how does the particular form of words used here tell us some point of law which is not contained in another text bearing upon the same subject)? Since it is said, (Deuteronomy 24:7) “If a man be found stealing any of his brethren … [then that thief shall die]”, I might say that I have here only the law that a man who stole a person is punishable with death. Whence, however, do I know that this is also the case if a woman or a person whose sex is not distinguishable or a hermaphrodite (טומטום ואנדרונינוס) has stolen a person? Scripture therefore states here: “Whosoever stealeth a man and selleth him”. — And again, since Scripture states here: “He that stealeth a man [shall be put to death]”, I might say that I have here only the law that if one steals a man he is punishable with death. Whence do I know that this is also the case if he has stolen a woman? Therefore Scripture states, (Deuteronomy 24:7) “[If a man be found] stealing any person [he shall be put to death]”. Consequently both verses are necessary: what the one omits the other tells us (Mekhilta; Sanhedrin 85b).

ונמצא בידו implies that witnesses have seen him stealing and also saw him selling the person, and that he has been found in his possession before he had sold him (Mekhilta).

מות יומת HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH — by strangulation. Wherever the death-penalty is mentioned in Scripture without being precisely defined strangulation is intended (Mekhilta; Sanhedrin 84b). [It should be noted that Scripture interrupted the context by writing “Whosoever stealeth etc.” between the passages, “He that smiteth his father etc.” and “He that curseth his father etc.”, which passages ought on account of their contents to follow one after the other. I think that this gave rise to the difference of opinion found in Sanhedrin 85a where one Rabbi holds that we must put “smiting” on an equality with “cursing”, in spite of the text being interrupted by the verse וגונב, which, however, is placed between them only to teach that in some respects “smiting” and “cursing” have not the same law, — that after the death of the parents “cursing” them is punishable whilst “smiting” them is not; whilst another bolds that since the two verses have been disconnected “smiting” can by no means be put on an equality with, and have the same legal consequenses as, “cursing” (cf. Sanhedrin 85b)].

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND HE THAT STEALETH A MAN, AND SELLETH HIM, AND HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND — “previously, before the sale.” This is Rashi’s language. But I have not understood it., it would appear that the fact that the witnesses saw him in his possession constitutes their proof that the holder stole him. On this, Ramban asked: could you possibly think that the thief be subject to death without the witnesses having seen the actual theft and the sale? Their having seen him in the thief’s possession is in fact no proof at all that he had stolen him (Nimukei Shmuel). If Rashi means that witnesses must have seen him [the stolen person] in the thief’s possession before he had sold him — could it even enter your mind that the thief be subject to the death penalty without witnesses having seen him stealing and also seeing him selling! It would therefore have been sufficient if Scripture were to say: “and he that stealeth a man and selleth him”. Further, his being found in the thief’s possession is no real proof that he stole him! Rather, this verse is the source for that which we have been taught in a Mishnah: “He that steals a person is not liable to the punishment unless he brings him into his own possession,” and in a Beraitha the Rabbis have said: “If he stole him but did not sell him, or if he sold him but he is still in his [the thief’s], possession, he is free [from the death penalty].” The meaning of this is to teach us that the law applying to the thief of a human being is [in one respect] similar to that of thieves of other, i.e., monetary, matters; namely, that if a thief killed or sold [an ox or a sheep] within the domain of the owner, he is free [from paying five oxen for an ox and four sheeps for a sheep], but if he lifted them up [thereby acquiring possession of them], or removed them from the domain of the owner, he is liable to pay. Similarly, this thief of a human being must first have brought the stolen person into his own domain [in order to be liable to death]. Likewise if he lifted the lad upon his shoulder, and sold him to another person, he is liable to the death penalty, because this too is called if he be found in his hand, since it is not logical that a man’s ground should have a greater power of taking possession of a thing for the owner, than his own hand has. In a similar way, that which the Rabbis said [in the Beraitha mentioned above]: “or if he sold him but he is still in his [the thief’s] possession etc.,” means that the buyer did not remove him at all from the thief’s domain, even though he paid him the money, and since he did not remove him from there, the thief is free [from the death penalty]. Now I do not know whether this is to say that [in order to make the thief of a human being liable to the death penalty] the buyer must perform a formal act of acquisition, as is the law in other transactions, that the buyer does not take ownership of the article until he draws it from the domain of the seller into a simta, [an alley adjoining an open place] or until he lifts it [even within the domain of the seller] — or it may be that it is a special Scriptural decree in the case of the sale of a stolen human being, that even if the sale has been finalized between them, and the buyer has taken ownership from the seller by lifting him or by drawing him along in ground which belongs to both of them, [in which case usually the act of drawing the purchased article is a valid act of acquisition even if not done in a simta], that the thief is nonetheless free from the death penalty until the stolen person goes out from his domain into the domain of the buyer. And so indeed it would appear to be [as the latter exposition].Now Rashi in his commentaries there in the Gemara explained [the phrase of the Beraitha]: “if he sold him but he is still in his possession” as meaning “if he is still in the stolen person’s domain,. in which case the thief is free from punishment because there has been no real theft at all.” But if so, nothing new has been established here which is unlike the ordinary law of theft in monetary matters! However, it may be, the words of the verse [to be interpreted properly, must be transposed as follows]: “and he that stealeth a man, and he be found in his hand, and he selleth him, he shall surely be put to death.” But it is still possible that the verse may be explained properly in the order it is written in. Thus: And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, and he be found in the hand of the buyer [he — the thief — shall surely be put to death]; for if he stole a human being and brought him to his house, and then he brought the buyer there and sold him without the buyer taking him out from there, the thief is not liable, because the sale has not been completed between them, or even if the sale has been completed, he is still free of the death penalty, as I have written above.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.