Torah · Case law
Text 01 / 08 · The law
What a man owes
Exodus 21:10–11
Exodus 21:10 in the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The verse sits in the left column.
Exodus 21:10–11
Exodus 21:10 in the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The verse sits in the left column.
This law describes a man taking another wife and immediately turns to the woman already in the household. Her food, clothing, and marital rights may not be reduced. If he withholds them, she goes free. The law tells us about her legal standing and his obligations, but it does not answer every moral question about the household.
אִם־אַחֶרֶת יִקַּח־לוֹ שְׁאֵרָהּ כְּסוּתָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ לֹא יִגְרָע׃ וְאִם־שְׁלׇשׁ־אֵלֶּה לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה לָהּ וְיָצְאָה חִנָּם אֵין כָּסֶף׃
transliteration
im-acheret yiqqach-lo, she'erah kesutah ve'onatah lo yigra. ve'im-shelosh-elleh lo ya'aseh lah, veyatze'ah chinnam ein kasef.
If he takes another for himself, her food, her clothing, and her marital due he shall not diminish. And if he does not do these three for her, she shall go out free, without payment of money.
A close literal rendering; compare ESV, NASB, KJV.
The opening is not hidden in a difficult Hebrew word. The law says, “if he takes another,” and then names what he may not take from the first woman. Whatever larger conclusion we reach later, this much is on the page: her marriage continues, her claims remain in force, and the arrival of another woman does not reduce them.
Food, clothing, and marital care belong to her, and he may not diminish them. Then comes the part that is easy to miss. If he fails to provide those things, she leaves without paying anything back. The law does not let him use a later marriage to strip away the standing he gave her when he made her a wife.
A closer look at the important words
Open any term to see its range and where else Scripture uses it.
- her food · Flesh, food, or sustenance. The exact scope is debated, but the word names something owed to her that the man may not reduce.
- her clothing · A covering or garment. Some ancient interpreters understood shelter to be included, but clothing is the word's direct sense.
- and her marital due · A word that appears exactly once in the Hebrew Bible. Traditional Jewish interpretation and the ancient versions read it as her conjugal right, her marital love, not to be withheld. The derivation is disputed, and that reading is the ancient and best attested one rather than the only one proposed.
- he shall not diminish · The verb means to reduce, withdraw, or take away. If he cannot care for another wife without cutting what the first woman receives, the law says he may not make that cut.
How translators have handled the wording
AD 1008–1009
Hebrew Masoretic Text · Leningrad Codex
שְׁאֵרָהּ כְּסוּתָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ לֹא יִגְרָע
The oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew tradition is much earlier; this date belongs to the surviving witness, not to the composition of Exodus.
c. 250 BC
Septuagint (Greek)
τὰ δέοντα καὶ τὸν ἱματισμὸν καὶ τὴν ὁμιλίαν αὐτῆς οὐκ ἀποστερήσει
The Jewish translators of Alexandria render onah as homilia, her companionship, her conjugal society.
c. AD 398–405
Latin Vulgate Pentateuch
providebit puellae nuptias et vestimenta et pretium pudicitiae non negabit
Jerome's Hebrew-based Pentateuch renders the term as “the price of her chastity,” a payment rather than a conjugal right. This is the rendering the Latin West read for centuries.
1530
William Tyndale's Pentateuch
her food, raiment and duty of marriage shall he not minish
Tyndale had already restored the conjugal-duty sense in printed English before the King James Version.
1611
King James Version
her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish
The KJV preserves the English conjugal-duty wording already found in Tyndale's Pentateuch.
2001
English Standard Version
her food, her clothing, or her marital rights
Modern committee translation agrees with the Septuagint, the Talmud, and the KJV: a right belonging to her.
The Vulgate differs from the other translations in this table by rendering the term as a payment rather than a conjugal right. Jerome's Hebrew-based Pentateuch was produced later than his Gospel revision of 384. The wording is clear; this record does not tell us why he chose it.
Who does this law protect?
This is case law from a hard ancient world. A father has placed his daughter into household service, and the man of that house, or his son, has designated her as a wife. The slavery in the setting should not be softened or used as evidence that the whole institution was good. The law addresses the woman with the least power and gives her claims the man cannot bargain away.1
The law keeps two events separate. He first acquired her service and later made her his wife. Payment connected with the first event does not erase the duties created by the second. If he takes another wife, he cannot cut the first woman’s place in the household to make the new arrangement cheaper. If he withholds what a wife is owed, the law sets her free and cancels the earlier payment.
The law addresses a household in which the woman can easily be pushed aside. It names what remains hers and limits what the man may do.
What is the husband forbidden to reduce?
The law makes all three duties belong to the woman it protects. It does not tell us how wealthy a man must be, but it gives him no permission to make her bear the cost of another marriage. Her food, covering, and marital care may not shrink. Anyone who reads the opening as an opportunity while treating the duties as a footnote has reversed the emphasis of the law.
What does the law mean for the wife?
From her side, the husband’s duties are not favors she has to earn. Food, clothing, and marital care are hers. Whatever her position was when she first entered the household, marriage gave her a place he cannot quietly take back.
Scripture does not describe her as passive. First Corinthians 7:3-4 gives husband and wife duties to each other, and the household stories show how much a woman’s choices can build peace or feed rivalry. The wider picture is gathered here: The head and the body.
Why you may reach a different conclusion
You may be thinking that regulation is not the same as approval. You would be right to raise that objection.
The Torah regulates slavery, divorce, warfare, debt, and other realities of a fallen world. Jesus says Moses permitted divorce because of hard hearts. So the existence of this law cannot prove, on its own, that a plural household expresses God’s ideal or remains lawful for Christians. Exodus may simply be limiting harm inside something God tolerated for a time.
Why I reach a different conclusion
The objection is right. Exodus 21 cannot carry the whole conclusion. What it establishes is narrower: Mosaic law recognizes the continuing marital standing of the first woman, describes the additional woman within the same household, and enforces marital duties rather than ordering either union dissolved. Calling that recognition an accommodation is possible, but it is a further conclusion that has to be tested from the rest of Scripture.
Exodus cannot be the last word. We still have to ask how Genesis defines marriage, how the narratives and prophets judge these households, and whether Jesus or the apostles end an earlier allowance. Jesus’s teaching about divorce is considered on its own page.
What I think this passage establishes
Exodus 21 does not command anyone to form a plural household, and it cannot prove a timeless moral permission by itself. It does establish that, in Israel’s law, the first woman remains a wife with enforceable marital claims when another woman enters the household. Whether that legal recognition was temporary accommodation or part of a continuing account of marriage is the question the remaining passages must answer.
Chapter Six, Section Three: Exodus 21:10 and What a Man Owes · coming soon →
1note
The surrounding institution includes debt service, patriarchal authority, and a payment to the woman’s father. Those facts should not be disguised. The narrower point is that designation as a wife changes her legal standing: the text names duties owed to her, and failure releases her without repayment. That is not modern equality, but neither is she treated in this law as an object without claims.
Open the sources
- Sefaria · Exodus 21:10 ↗ · The Masoretic Hebrew with English alongside; the Hebrew shown here comes from this text.
- Bible Hub interlinear · Exodus 21:10 ↗ · A word-by-word parsing with Strong's numbers for checking the terms used here.
- Ketubot 47b · Sefaria ↗ · The Talmud's reading of onah as conjugal right: the ancient Jewish reception.
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The next passage is Deuteronomy 21:15–17. The law begins, “If a man has two wives,” and protects the firstborn son of the less-loved wife. It establishes his lawful place in the family and limits his father's power. It does not tell us, by itself, whether the household should have been formed.