complete verse (Exodus 21:26)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 21:26:

  • Kupsabiny: “When/If someone beats his male or female slave until the eye bursts, he should release that slave to go away to pay for his/her eye.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “If a man hits his manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free because of his eye.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘If a master hits his male or female slave in the eye and it is-blinded, he should-free him/her from slavery as a payment for the eye that he blinded” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “‘If a man strikes his male or female laborer up in the eye and so he ruins his/her eye, he must allow that laborer to leave him and go. This event serves as the payment for the laborer’s eye.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “If a man will hit his slave eye, male or woman, and eye be injured, he must untie him because of his eye.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “If the owner of a slave strikes the eye of his male or female slave and ruins it, he must free that slave because of what he did to the slave’s eye.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 21:26

Verses 26 and 27 give an additional law concerning bodily harm to a slave. (See verses 20-21.) When a man strikes is identical with the opening words of verse 20. The man here refers to “a slaveowner” (New Revised Standard Version). The eye of his slave, male or female is literally “the eye of his [male] slave or the eye of his [female] slave.” The Hebrew has a specific word for each. (See verse 20.) And destroys it is more specific, for the word here means to spoil or ruin the eye. It does not necessarily mean “puts it out” (Good News Translation) but rather “destroys the use of it” (New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible).

He shall let the slave go free is literally “to be freed he shall send him [or, let him go].” For the eye’s sake is simply “for his eye.” New Revised Standard Version now has “to compensate for the eye.”

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 .