When is abortion murder? Matt Colvin on Exodus 21:22-23

The Public Square
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Not sure if people here have heard of Matt Colvin, but he writes an article about what we can learn in Exodus 21:22-23 about when killing a foetus is considered murder in the Law of Moses.

In summary, he argues that the word harm is better translated formed. The text then reads that a miscarriage caused by a man striking a pregnant woman is worthy of a fine if the foetus is not formed i.e. does not have an identifiable body. On the other hand, if the foetus is formed, i.e. has an identifiable body, then the man who caused the miscarriage is guilty of murder and will reap the death penalty.

In other words, killing a foetus is wrong no matter what, but killing a foetus after they have an identifiable body (around 10 weeks) is killing a person.

(He goes into greater detail in this post: Trinity Lecture Series 2019, 1 | Colvinism )

The only thing I’d add is that verses 23-25 allow for punishments if a child is born with a non-fatal injury.

What are people’s thoughts? Is it less egregious to kill an unformed foetus than one with a discernable body? What difference might this make for us?

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I’m not sure I am smart enough to follow the arguments presented in that link. Seems more sophisticated than it needs to be?

I wrote this on social media recently, as I had been asked by someone close to me to comment on a video from a woman in which this Exodus 21 argument comes up. Here’s my take on the passage:

This whole argument from Exodus 21 – which keeps coming up recently as if it’s some sort of slam dunk against Christians – is based on cherry-picking a bad English translation. Notice first that she reads Exodus 21:22 to say “and she miscarries.” This is a misleading translation. I am not sure which translation she is using, but it is a bad one.

When we hear the word miscarry, we automatically think “dead child.” But the verb here in Hebrew has to do with “going out.” It’s the picture of premature birth, not necessarily stillbirth, which is the key to understanding the point of the passage. This is why responsible English translations render it something like, “so that her children come out,” or “so that her fruit depart from her,” or “she gives birth prematurely.”

The law is saying that if the baby comes out prematurely, the one who caused the premature labor may be subject to pay a fine for the family’s trouble at the father’s discretion. Why? The father exacts the fine not because it’s his property (as feminists love to assert), but because it’s his right and responsibility as a husband and father to seek justice for the harm of his wife and children. It’s patriarchy doing what it’s supposed to.

By contrast, verse 23 goes on to say that if there is either serious injury/harm or death (KJV: mischief) – inferring that it be either toward the child or the mother – then the law shall demand life for life, eye for eye, and so forth. It isn’t up to the husband’s discretion there, because the law of God demands justice for the harm of persons. Why? Because fundamentally, the law of God recognizes that persons are not property. Whatever station of life a person may occupy (including that of a slave: see the broader chapter), all men and women bear the image of God, and on that basis alone are protected under God’s law. In other words, people are God’s property, not man’s, and so God himself becomes the Father who demands the justice.

If any interpretive challenge can be acknowledged, it would only be that the text in Hebrew lacks explicit wording to denote that verse 23 refers to the harm of the baby vs. harm of the mother, but it doesn’t need to be explicit. A simple understanding of the verb in verse 22 makes the meaning plain.

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It’s worth taking the Septuagint seriously, but the paper linked in the post makes it clear that the evidence is only the single translation in the Septuagint, and the claim of a cognate in another language. As far as I can tell, nobody else anywhere ever translated it this way, and it seems that those who claimed or assumed this meaning were simply taking the Septuagint at face value.

I’m very skeptical that somehow everybody else in the world except the LXX translators, all through history had lost track of this word.

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That’s true. While there have been challenges to well accepted translations that turn out to be correct, in this case the earlier translations are more likely to be accurate.

I agree with your point.

So ends what I thought would be a longer discussion :slight_smile: .

I was surprised that I couldn’t find this Exodus passage when I searched these pages. At least it will come up in the search results now :slight_smile: .

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Always check Baylyblog.com. Great resource of millions of words of (still very current) instruction. Nevertheless, if you look there, you’ll find reference to the passage only to introduce Calvin’s comment on it:

The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to life.

On the passage, though, two things: first, back in the early eighties, I examined the debate and decided this passage could not support the often-exclusive and very heavy weight pro-lifers frequently demanded of it. Their arguments left me unsatisfied and struck me as screeching, particularly when they tried to claim their exegesis was the only possible one. So I never put much weight on the text for the personhood part of the argument. Your opinion might differ and God bless you, but that’s why you don’t find much reference to it, here.

Second, if we believe in the analogy of faith, we interpret the less clear by the more clear, and there are so many more clear texts that should be used to interpret this text.

As I said to the ethicist prof at Gordon-Conwell as well as in class to Roger Nicole, both men arguing that the morality of abortion depended upon the time of ensoulment: “If you aren’t certain life begins at ‘quickening,’ as you just argued (Stephen Mott, ethicist prof speaking with me), then abortion is forbidden you. Precisely because you are not certain.” By God’s kindness, I believe this made an impact on Dr. Nicole. He certainly became a firm anti-abortionist.

Dont’ think it ever changed Mott. Doubt it. In making this case to the two profs seperately, both times used Princeton Methodist ethicist prof Paul Ramsey’s illustration of hunter seeing what he thinks is a deer in the underbrush and not shooting until he was certain it was a deer. Otherwise, if it was not a deer but a man and he killed him, he’d be guilty of manslaughter.

I do like your piece though, Jason. Love,

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