complete verse (Exodus 21:4)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 21:4:

  • Kupsabiny: “If someone got/acquired his slave when that slave was already married, that slave will be released with his wife. And/But if a person got/acquired his slave before that slave had married and (he) gave him a wife, then the wife will remain and that man goes away without a wife. That woman will remain with any child who was born in the home of the master.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “If his master gives him a wife and she gives birth to children, the woman and her children shall belong to the master, and only he shall go free.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “If his master gave- him -a-wife and they have-children by his wife, he will-be-free, but his wife and children will-remain with his master.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And if his chief joins him in marriage to a woman and then she bears some children to him, that woman with her children will be the chief’s. The male laborer alone will leave his chief and go.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “If [a] chief will buy woman for his slave, if she will bear children, [the] woman and her children, they will be that of [the] chief. Therefore, if chief will untie his slave, he will go alone.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “If a slave’s master gives him a wife, and she gives birth to sons or daughters while her husband is a slave, only the man is to be freed. His wife and children will continue to be slaves of their master.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 21:4

If is the third use of the word ʾim, mentioned at verse 2. His master means “his owner,” or “lord” (ʾadon). Gives him a wife, literally “gives to him a woman,” refers to a situation where the master assigns one of his slave girls to marry the unmarried slave. Some languages will express this as “gives him a woman slave for him to take as his wife.” And she bears him sons or daughters means that children are born to the slave by that wife. The text specifies both sons and daughters.

The wife and her children (Good News Translation: “the woman and her children”) uses the feminine her, relating the children to the mother rather than to the father. Shall be her master’s is literally “she will be to her master [ʾadon],” but it means that “the woman and her children belong to the master” (Good News Translation). New American Bible has “shall remain the master’s property.” Translator’s Old Testament adds “shall still belong to her master.” And he shall go out alone refers to the male slave, the father of the children. Under this law, therefore, the father who became a freed slave had no claim to either his wife or his children if their mother was already a slave of the master. The final sentence may be also expressed as “Only the man himself has the right to be freed.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .