Exodus 21:28-32

THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS INJURED OR KILLED BY ANIMALS

"And if an ox gore a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox was wont to gore in time past, and it hath been testified to its owner, and he hath not kept it in, but it hath killed a man or a woman: the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. And if there be laid on him a ransom, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatsoever is laid upon him, Whether it hath gored a man, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. If the ox gore a man-servant or a maid-servant, there shall be given unto the master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned"

The right of the public to be shielded from dangerous animals, known to be so, is set forth here, where appropriate penalties for negligence are imposed. The principles of this law are binding in every country of the world today.

"Its flesh shall not be eaten ..." Having caused the death of a man, their flesh was considered to be unclean.

Note that the death penalty could be invoked for persistent and willful violations leading to someone's death,

"And if there be laid on him a ransom ..." "This is the only case where a money compensation, instead of capital punishment, was expressly allowed in the Mosaic Law."[26]

"If the ox gore (a servant) ..." (Exodus 21:32). "A slave's death required a fine of 30 shekels (about $15 or $20), and the ox's death."[27] This law was honored even in the days of Jesus Christ, and the mention here of the exact price of a dead slave as 30 pieces of silver (shekels), prompts the question as to WHY the Pharisees elected to pay Judas Iscariot exactly that amount. The haggling over the amount, as indicated by Judas' bargaining with them, suggests that there was something very special about this exact amount of money chosen by the "false shepherds" of Israel as the amount they would pay for the treachery of Judas. Most assuredly, there was!

"The evil shepherds (Pharisee, Sadducees, Herodians, the Sanhedrin) had already decided to kill Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:4). This they planned to be a clandestine murder; they regarded Jesus as already dead! They also considered him to be no better than a common slave; and therefore, they calculated that they should pay Judas the price of a DEAD slave as given here, a matter of thirty pieces of silver. Of course, Jesus was not dead at that time, but the announced purpose of the Sanhedrin of murdering him shows that they would willingly assume the role of the OX in this key verse. They would be the OX that gored him to death! What a magnificent calculation! And what a revelation of the heart of those murderers in the very price they selected as the blood money!"

"But those evil shepherds overlooked one key element in their diabolical calculations: THE OX MUST BE STONED! Thus, they sealed their own doom and that of Israel, and the sentence was ruthlessly carried out by the armies of Vespasian and Titus during that dreadful August of A.D. 70. - From Vol. 4, Minor Prophets, p. 173."