Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 21:27
And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.
Verse 27. If he smite out his – tooth] It was a noble law that obliged the unmerciful slaveholder to set the slave at liberty whose eye or tooth he had knocked out. If this did not teach them humanity, it taught them caution, as one rash blow might have deprived them of all right to the future services of the slave; and thus self-interest obliged them to be cautious and circumspect.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Some confine this to the Israelitish servants, but the text doth not so limit it; and the reason of the law seems to reach to Gentile servants, this being a just punishment to unmerciful masters, (who ought to be merciful to their beasts, much more to such servants,) and a fit recompence to a servant for such a loss. And this law reacheth the loss of any other member, these two being instanced in, the one as the chief, and the other as the meanest, to intimate that other parts of a like or middle nature are included.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth,…. Give them such a slap on the face, or a blow on the mouth, as to strike out one of their teeth; this also the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi restrain to a Canaanitish servant or maid;
he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake; both him and her, the servant and the maid; this, though of lesser consequence than the loss of an eye, was punished in the same manner with the loss of the servant man or maid, to make masters careful how they abused their servants in any degree. And though only these parts are expressed, yet Jarchi and Aben Ezra observe, that all other principal members of the body, which they reckon to be twenty four, are included, as the fingers, toes, &c.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
smite. Not the same word as elsewhere in this chapter.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
smite: Exo 21:19
Reciprocal: Exo 21:20 – smite Exo 21:24 – General Job 31:13 – the cause
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
21:27 And if he smite {s} out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.
(s) So God revenges cruelty in the even the least things.