Keluaran 21:32

21:32 If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, the owner ¹  must pay thirty shekels of silver, ²  and the ox must be stoned. ³ 

Keluaran 22:30

22:30 You must also do this for your oxen and for your sheep; seven days they may remain with their mothers, but give them to me on the eighth day.

Keluaran 29:12

29:12 and take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar ⁴  with your finger; all the rest of ⁵  the blood you are to pour out at the base of the altar.

[21:32]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the owner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:32]  ² sn A shekel was a unit for measure by means of a scale. Both the weight and the value of a shekel of silver are hard to determine. “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181). Over four hundred years earlier, Joseph was sold into Egypt for 20 shekels. The free Israelite citizen was worth about 50 shekels (Lev 27:3f.).

[21:32]  ³ sn See further B. S. Jackson, “The Goring Ox Again [Ex. 21,28-36],” JJP 18 (1974): 55-94.

[29:12]  ⁴ sn This act seems to have signified the efficacious nature of the blood, since the horns represented power. This is part of the ritual of the sin offering for laity, because before the priests become priests they are treated as laity. The offering is better described as a purification offering rather than a sin offering, because it was offered, according to Leviticus, for both sins and impurities. Moreover, it was offered primarily to purify the sanctuary so that the once-defiled or sinful person could enter (see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB]).

[29:12]  ⁵ tn The phrase “rest of” has been supplied in the translation for clarification.